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Angie Mangino: Posted on Saturday, December 24, 2011 2:43 PM
It doesn't matter if you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Ramadan, Diwali, Dongzhi, or Winter Solstice; we share so much that is the same. This is the season of awareness, inner renewal, blessing, and affirmation of self-worth for all of us. We may all seem different by our winter celebrations, but under closer inspection, we are all saying the same thing. If only the people of the world could all learn to recognize this fact, peace on earth would actually exist. That’s the real message of the season that I hope you’ll be able to discover in your celebrations this year. While wishing each other a happy holiday, I’d like to share with you my own personal take on the form of greetings for this seasons that mystifies me in becoming a problem for many, rather than a shared wish for happiness & blessings. Each year a childhood friend of mine who celebrates Hanukkah wishes me a “Merry Christmas,” while I wish him and his wife a “Happy Hanukkah.” They give me a Christmas wrapped gift, while I wrap my Hanukkah gift to them in Hanukkah paper, with gold wrapped chocolate coins “gelt” attached on top of the package. We share our love of each other at the holidays by honoring each other’s different beliefs. So now that it’s Christmas, if someone wishes you a “MerryChristmas,” from their belief and joy at this time, and that is not your belief, know that the greeting is coming from a place of love, wishing you blessings, not an attack on your beliefs. Find that equivalent place in your belief, and receive the greeting in that spirit of blessing. That said, I close this week’s blog from my heart, wishing you every blessing in this season of mutually similar beliefs searching for that elusive “peace on earth” we all desire and need. Merry Christmas! Angie
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Angie Mangino: Posted on Friday, December 16, 2011 8:37 PM
 The Colonial Christmas at the Conference House on Sunday, Dec 11 was a wonderful pause in the hecticness of the season, taking one back to a much simpler time. It was my pleasure to go with Jaclyn Lurker, a fellow writer from Tottenville, who has been so supportive of my work writing about Tottenville from the very beginning when I first applied for a COAHSI grant to do the research and to conduct interactive workshops on the history of Tottenville. It is she who set up & maintained my first webiste, teaching me along the way that technology is my friend. Her support keeps me going during the rough times. Recently having her submission “Insult and Insolence” selected to be published in Bad Austen:The Worst Stories Jane Never Wrote, Jackie is in the process of writing a seven minute play on Pride for The Seven Deadly Sins, a presentation of the Staten Island Playwrights Collective, to be performed at the Unitarian Church in the end of February.  As a special Christmas treat for both of us, we both got calls from the Conference House after the event to pick up the baskets we won. Appropriately she won the Sangria basket, while I won a wine basket of one of my favorites, Gato Negro.
Enjoy a peak at the event with the pictures I took & share in the Christmas spirit I found there. |
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Angie Mangino: Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2011 6:08 PM
It’s that time of year where most of us go into supercharged mode in anticipation of the holidays. Yet during all this joyful, and unfortunately sometimes stressful, preparation, I know I have to remind myself repeatedly that all that really needs to be done will get done…and if it doesn’t get done….well….then maybe it’s because it really didn’t NEED to be done! Annually the Conference House here in Tottenville offers a break from the stress with a short repast back in time with the Grand Illumination and Colonial Christmas. Did you attend the Grand Illumination last Friday night, December 2? Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go this year to see the Conference House lit up with candles in each window, or to indulge in the hot cider and cookies while singing Christmas carols. Having attended last year, I missed that sense of community celebrating the holidays from a simpler time in Tottenville’s history. However, I do plan to attend the Colonial Christmas at the Conference House on Sunday, December 11 at some point during their hours of 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. Hopefully all goes well for me to attend, and if so, I would love for readers of this blog to come up to me so that I can share some in- person time with you who share so much online time with me each week.
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