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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday December 11, 2000 Volume II Number 50 |
FOCUS - Gala
It really was surreal. It hit about the time I made the speech. I welcomed the crowd to our annual Christmas event, a community fund-raiser. The money goes to the kids. It assists our local public school faculty and administration, providing that little extra to make our programs work.
And as I spoke into the microphone, all the pent-up anxiety hit. We’d been preparing for months. And, as volunteer projects go, there are far more things to be done than is humanly possible. So you work hard, and hope for the best. And pray that Murphy’s law won’t derail the progress.
You stand there, and look around. And the results of all the hard work is there for you to see, and suddenly you realize it was all worth-while.
And as the President of the club, turning the event over to the Master of Ceremonies and the auctioneer, I returned to my seat next to Carolyn, and the surreal part began. An easing of the burden. Passing over that threshold. Some call it a passage. You cross the great divide… from the fears of all the things that might have gone wrong, to a celebration of all the things that went right.
And when the count came in, we hit out numbers. The crowd was enthusiastic. And festive. And in the Christmas spirit.
* * * * * *
We call it the Christmas Gala. For the British, a “Gala,” from the old French and Italian word for “rejoicing” or “to make merry,” refers to a swimming competition. But only for the Brits. For the rest of us, a Gala is a lavish celebration, or festive social event, and ours was all of that.
As people arrived on a chilly December California night, dressed in bright greens and reds, knit sweaters and jackets, women with Christmas pins dangling, costume jewelry of hand painted, ornamented trees with tiny little wrapped packages underneath, and snowmen and candy-canes and angels in flight. Some of the guys in showed up in Christmas ties, snow scenes and Santas and reindeer and skaters in scarves and caps, and Winter-Wonderlands like murals hanging under a square knot around the neck, cascading down and making the season bright. Two rows of trees, lit with hundreds of twinkling points of light, guided new arrivals to the welcome table, where a high tech, networked computer registered their attendance, manned by a couple volunteers, also dressed for the occasion, assigning each potential bidder a number.
The Pavilion at the Middle School filled with the aroma of rich hors d’ouvres and hot apple cider was also filled with the rich sounds of Christmas. The high school choir director and bandleader are musicians in their own right, and when the kids are gone, and the instruments tucked away in the lockers and the practice rooms emptied of teenagers, Jeff and Chris pull out the fugal horn and the saxophone and play jazz. Accompanied by a keyboard artist who knows how to work a synthesizer, the two launched off in a holiday jazz fest, improvising their way through the Christmas classics in an up-tempo tribute to the gala affair, setting the mood. Folks snapped their fingers and tapped their toes to the music, humming lines and chiming in to the melody with familiar lyrics “thumpety thump thump, thumpety thump thump, look at Frosty go!” “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…” Of course, in our part of the world, it never does.
More lit trees formed a large circle around the dining area set for the affair. Bright table cloths and poinsettia centerpieces covered the circular dining tables, which were surrounded by rectangular tables laden with silent auction items like power screw drivers and flats of blooming flowers from the nursery and ornamented wreaths of all sizes and computer components and blenders and cappuccino makers and power carving knives and other practical gift items, each donated to the cause and going to the highest bidder.
Camille commandeered the food table. Wrapped in a checkered red apron, he and his crew kept the warming trays stocked with wings and ribs and stuffed mushrooms and salads and creamy crab dips and blocks of sharp cheddar, rows of stacked flaky crackers and barbequed meatballs. Outside the gourmet coffee bar whipped up cappuccinos and chocolate mochas and eggnog Lattes.
Decaf if you so desire.
* * * * * *
Every year I wonder about all this holiday gaiety.
This love-hate relationship we have with the holiday season.
We abhor the commercialism. We complain about the stress. We roll our eyes as we tell one another about our over-loaded schedules. The impossible demands. The unrealistic expectations. The costly, conspicuous consumption. The intestinal abuse. The arterial clog. The environmental travesty; lighting the night sky with strings of colored lights assembled in Mexico for no apparent reason other than to keep face with the neighbors, burning up precious energy, unnecessarily warming up the globe and widening the hole in the ozone layer out there on the edge of space, melting down the polar ice cap, reeking havoc on traditional weather patterns, contributing to hurricanes and summer tornadoes and twisters and floods here and drought there, and stacking up calamity upon calamity.
What’s the point?
On the other hand, we are hopelessly
addicted to chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
I still weep every
time Bob Wallace and Phil Davis (Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye) open up those big
barn doors with the Haynes Sisters (Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen) up there
in Vermont at General Waverly’s ski lodge, celebrating his victory over the
forces of evil with all those uniformed troops dressed out, and the snow falls
on Christmas Eve, because we all dream of a White Christmas.
And then when George (Jimmy Stewart) and Mary Bailey (Donna Reed) hold
up their kids at the Christmas party attended by the whole town of Bedford
Falls and his brother Harry announces, "A toast... to my big brother,
George. The richest man in town,” he really is, because “It’s a Wonderful
Life” after all.
And so we watch those, along with a couple other Christmas movies every year without fail. Can’t help it.
I’ve concluded that the early sunset and the late sunrise and the short days and the long dark nights, the chilly mornings and the dry leaves and the bare trees and the colds and the flu and the year end pressures would leave us all in a serious state of depression, requiring skillful psychotherapy just to get us through, were it not for the twinkling lights, and the crackling fireplace, and the cheery songs… and the manger scene.
You
know, there are several species of mammals that hibernate all winter long.
Sleep can be a terrific avoidance mechanism.
Sometimes I think that would be a good idea for us humans.
But instead, we hang the lights. We raise the tree. We break out the old CDs. We warm up the hot chocolate and throw in a peppermint stick, or the apple cider a cinnamon stick. We hear the children singing the same songs we learned somewhere back there in the early days, now shadowy memories, fading fast, always brought back to life at the children’s concert, and we once more embrace the joys of Christmas.
And like Ebenezer Scrooge, after a fearful visitation from Christmas past, present and future, we are converted once more to the happiness that’s somehow captured in a season that will never die.
Never.
* * * * * *
Rick ran the computers.
As a signal to everyone present that he would enjoy the evening, and direct the efforts of his staff from a distance, that he was confident in the set-up and operation of a system designed for zero defect, and that he really is his own man, he dressed for the evening as Maverick.
We’re talkin’ Maverick. As in Bret Maverick. Starring Mel Gibson. Reviving the image of young James Garner.
Rick is more than a six footer. He wore a tall broad brimmed black velvet hat, black pants and high-heeled pointed toe boots. Black. His long tailed jacket was also black, with a silk brocade vest and high collared white shirt and black string tie. He didn’t walk across the room at the Christmas Gala. He strode.
He was a man in charge.
So when he reported the count to me, I knew it was a reliable count. We more than hit our fund raising target, Rick, …uh, Marverick, told me.
The gala was a success.
* * * * *
It’s Monday morning, the second Monday morning in December. The pressure is mounting. The year is coming to an end.
There will be parties and social events. Appearances and gatherings. Your calendar is over-loaded. Your expectations high.
Take some time to take it in. The sounds. The smells. The smiles. The hugs.
Remember moderation in all things. Get your rest. Stay healthy. Say yes. Say no.
You are a leader. Choose the things that really count.
And stop by a manger scene. Look it over.
Think about what you see.
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2000
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
LeaderFOCUS is a service of Good Stewardship Associates
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