This week’s Happy Friday!!! comes with very warm wishes for all of you out there in interwebs land. I sincerely hope you all had as blessed and joyful Christmas as we did. One of our favorite smiley moments came when we learned that my wife, our son, and I all bought each other the same CD for Christmas. It actually worked out, because our daughter got one, we got one, and our son got one.

Christmas always makes my head spin with memories… mostly good. There are a few recollections of Christmases Past that could be better left forgotten I suppose; both from childhood and adulthood. However, although such unpleasantries float through my thoughts from time to time, their importance is greatly diminished by what life brings to us these days.

Life is very good. As far as money goes, we are not rich; but we are wealthy in many ways.

Materially, I want for nothing. We exchange gifts of course, but in my case, socks and blue jeans are much more awesome than the latest gadget. I am very grateful to Santa for everything we’ve received, but the most important gift anyone could have is the love we share as a family. I would love to solve all the world’s problems and give EVERYONE what we have; but obviously that’s not possible.

With the arrival of grandchildren, our Christmas has changed over the years. Many times in the past, my Beautiful Girlfriend would insist that our kids spend the night with us Christmas Eve and enjoy what Santa brought the following morning. Of course, when our grandchildren came along our daughter and son in law wanted to start their own tradition. We very much understand the need for a family to have Christmas together; but my Beautiful Girlfriend was a bit reluctant to go along with that idea at first. However, she knew there was absolutely no argument that would hold water on that issue. Instead, they’ve blessed us with the ability to spend the night of the 23^rd at their house and wake up for a gift exchange on Christmas Eve Day.

Did I mention life is good??

So the past several Christmases have found the three of us, my Lovely Bride, our son, and me, waking up on Christmas morning together to enjoy what Santa brings. After our traditional brunch of hominy with sausage, peppers, and onions served with two eggs on top; our son went to his house to be with his kitties while we spent much of the afternoon on the phone talking to relatives. Anybody remember the telephone?? Landlines they call them now. Sheesh…

Anyway, thanks to The People Upstairs for taking care of us mortals down here. We are very grateful. And thanks to all of you who read this!! The fact that anyone reads it is a blessing to me. If someone actually enjoys what I write, I feel very blessed indeed.

Peace, Love and Joy to you all; and thank you for being my friends. And just to prove that it really is me writing this: Please remember that it’s always better to be you than for you to be me; and although you can count to it, eight is a word.

Take care my friends!! See you next year!!

Here’s an oldie but a goodie… some Red Green Christmas spirit.

High On “See”

by Ken Hansen

Holy Moly, what the HECK happened here?? I mean, there I was, minding my own business, feeling pretty young and full of energy (or something), listening to The Beatles on the radio after they landed for the first time in the US in 1964; when all of a sudden, I turned 61 and I’m still feeling pretty young but maybe not full of quite so much energy (but still lots of something); writing run-on sentences for some silly Happy Friday!!! blog thing but HOLY MOLY I got OLD somehow!!

Well OK, I’m not really old, but I am, but I’m not. Do any of you out there relate to any of this? Well if you do you may not want to admit it; because it might mean you’re getting old too!!

So here I am in my 61^st year on this lovely planet, and I’m finally able to plan ahead just a little bit. Please believe me though, that when I use the word “plan,” I use it very loosely. After all, we can try to plan things but inevitably something introduces a change. With any luck at all, the changes are not life threatening; but they can still make us veer off our original course.

I’ve learned the hard way that whenever I profess to be planning something; I need to be very aware that things just may not work out the way I want. Stuff happens, right? Anymore, when I talk to friends or other loved ones about something I’d like to do, I qualify it. For example, friends would ask me what I’m doing on a given weekend. I’d start by saying, “my grandiose plans are to spend some time in the garden.” Then of course something interferes and I don’t get to do what I want. It’s very OK though. I’ve gotten much better at accepting such things. In fact, I’ve learned to embrace one of my favorite expressions I heard several years ago: “If you wanna make God laugh, tell Him you have plans.”

Mind you, I have no idea if God is a Him, Her, or a Them (I lean more toward Them). But I’ve received some pretty amazing gifts from The Great Beyond over the years. In spite of all my attempts to destroy my life with alcohol and other dangerous drugs, I’ve survived pretty much intact. After I quit poisoning myself and got the help I needed, life became pretty darned good. I don’t take credit for that; I believe I’m being helped.

This was again pointed out to me this past week. Those People Upstairs (Them) showed me something I never expected: Plan C. You may well ask, “Plan C?? What happened to Plans A and B??” Well I’m glad you asked.

Even if you didn’t.

For a few years now, my Beautiful Girlfriend and I have been lusting for retirement. OK, maybe I’m lusting for retirement… because I’m really ready to start a new chapter in life. She on the other hand, is kinda frightened about the whole retirement thing. Anyway, the plan has been for me to retire from my job at 66. The mortgage would be paid off at age 65; and “my grandiose plan” was to continue to pretend we had a mortgage payment to build up some cash reserve before retirement.

Then some uncertainty tainted the retirement waters: an announcement was made that several jobs in our department were being outsourced early next year. Unfortunately, I was not shocked by this news… I smelled it shortly after we had a regime change. The effect on our grandiose retirement plans was a backup to Plan A needed to be considered.  Plan A, as I mentioned previously, was to retire at 66, with the mortgage being paid off at 65. So Plan B was formulated: if I lost my job we’d withdraw from my 401K and pay the mortgage off so our income requirements would be much lower. Seemed like an OK formula.

Earlier this week, though, Someone from The Committee Upstairs (Them again) told me to consider Plan C. Pay the mortgage off NOW. I was a bit surprised. I hadn’t thought of this at all. After all, it’s possible I will keep my job until retirement. But the thought of being completely debt free before retirement was exhilarating!! Of course, I also quickly realized that Plan C would only be effective if I continued to pretend I have a mortgage payment and limit our spending accordingly. This would allow me to fund Roth IRAs while building a cash reserve to allow us to stay out of debt.

When I mentioned this to my Beautiful Girlfriend, her eyes got a bit wide with disbelief. Not sure if she thought I was out of my mind or just as amazed as I was!! There was little discussion though, as we both knew this was a good way to go.

Once we decided, I was like a kid in a candy store. At work, I told any friend who would listen about Plan C and all but one was very happy for me. She probably still thinks I’m a bit nuts to rob my 401K like this, but after all, I’m older than 59 ½ so there’s no penalty, just tax. Gonna pay tax on it sooner or later anyway.

One of my more Christian friends was very excited for me, and he also was really digging on my description of what I consider a spiritual experience. He smiled broadly and said, “I think you need to call it Plan See, like S-E-E!!” I couldn’t agree more. I don’t subscribe to any religion, but I do try to see where religious people can help me through this journey we call life.

Today was the Big Day. Mortgage go bye bye. No more debt. Holy Moly. I was out in the plant at work today and when my friends asked me how I was, I told them: “I’m high on life today.” And then of course I’d say how fortunate I am to have zero debt.

I guess you could say I’m high on “SEE.”

One thing nice about being older than compost: the blessings of some awesome entertainers over the years. I mentioned I was high on life? Well I think these guys were high on life too…