According to the famous Christmas song, it’s the most wonderful time of the year—and I wholeheartedly agree! I love the holidays and all its traditions, music, decorations, activities, and parties.
How much do I love it? Just drive by my house at 8th and Evergreen in Chanute and see. We have Santa in the window delivering gifts, a laser light show on the roof, a new animated light show tree, bubble light sidewalk luminaries, and more! And don’t forget to see the backyard. I have added a new animated light display there!
This Christmas is going to be a bit different than in years past. It is time for Jen and me to adjust to a changing world. For 25 years our girls have been with us on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. For the first time, they won’t be. They are both married, and that means sharing them and adjusting to celebrating on a different day.
I know that it doesn’t matter what day; the important thing is that we all get together. It will still be fun to have them home for a while and celebrate. But I’ll bet the first time no excited children ran downstairs on Christmas morning at your house, it was a bit sad too.
We have a lot of fun during the holidays and often tell tales of when things didn’t go as planned. My mom has a habit of reusing gift bags for presents, which is great. However, she often doesn’t check the bag first and remove last year’s tags. The new tag will be on one side of the bag, while last year’s tag is on the back. While opening size nine pink house shoes meant for one of my girls, I would say, “Thanks Mom, but these aren’t in my size,” much to her disappointment.
She has wrapped up things by accident too. Once my wife got some new cookie cutters that mom snatched from her hand. “I have been looking for those! That’s not for you.”
Of course, my wonderful Mother-in-Law, Judy, is the source of many Christmas stories. Her presents are always unintentionally funny. It was not uncommon to get four different kinds of wrapping paper on your box as she didn’t waste a scrap of it. Then she would run out of transparent tape and use duct tape or whatever she could find. The box itself was a mystery—usually a cracker box or cake mix box. Not exactly approved by Martha Stewart, but it was given with love.
One of my favorite Judy stories was the year that we were playing an unusual Christmas song guessing game. The player had to draw a secret song from the bucket and sing a Christmas song in the same vein as the dogs singing Jingle Bells, by literally barking the lyrics. You may have heard that song. However, this time we had to perform it as cats.
We were doing our best cat imitations to the holiday hits and laughing it up while people tried to guess the song the fastest. It was Judy’s turn to sing. She drew the song “Feliz Navidad,” turned to us and said seriously, “I can’t do this one, I don’t know all the words.”To which her daughter replied, “Mom, it’s ‘Meow.’” I couldn’t breathe for a full minute after that one. Luckily, I wasn’t taking a drink at that moment, or we would have a spit take.
The holidays are about many different things for many different people. But certainly, family and friends, celebrating together and showing their love for each other, are part of everyone’s observation of the season.
I want to take this opportunity to show my affection for the many people who help make Neosho County Community College a wonderful place to learn, work, and contribute.
First, I greatly appreciate our Board of Trustees, past, present and future, who spend their time and talents helping to lead this institution. Trustees are unpaid and must run for election to sit on our board. That means paying a filing fee and then putting yourself out there to be judged by the voters—just for the opportunity to help. There are many hours of meetings to attend and reports to read. There are difficult decisions to make and a lot of responsibility to live up to for the students, employees, and most of all, the taxpayers and community. They have all done a wonderful job representing you over the many years, and the success of the college is proof of that.
Secondly, the wonderful employees of NCCC have truly made the college what it is. A college is not the buildings, mascot, and symbols—it’s the people. Every day (and I mean every day, including the so-called “days off” that often aren’t) our employees put the student and community first as they help carry out our mission of enriching our communities and our students’ lives. They often put in long hours and tremendous effort into helping students grow and develop in their chosen professions. They live our unofficial motto—Their success is our success. NCCC is not successful unless our students are.
And it takes an army to create student success. All has to go well for the student to have a great experience; recruiting, marketing, admissions, financial aid, scholarships, advising, registration, housing, tutoring, bookstore, business office, instruction, counseling, safety, maintenance, custodial, technology services, grounds keeping, administration, clubs, athletics, human resources, mail/copy room, switchboard, reception, and on and on. Thank you all!
I greatly appreciate our donors and grants. If you look at the advances we have been able to achieve in the last few years, much of that has happened because of our wonderful donors and state/federal/foundation grants. Everything from the Mitchell Career and Technology Center to the Strahm Family Strength Center, to the upcoming Mih Family Fine Arts Center, all began with a lead gift from donors. In most cases, we were able to take those lead gifts and get additional gifts from others, as well as from various successful grants using those gifts as required “match.”
For instance, we have raised $4,142,002 so far for the Mih Family Fine Arts Center in gifts and grants. THANK YOU TO ALL THE DONORS! Our goal is $5.5 million, so we still have some work to do. I would love to have your help. If you would like to add our students to your Christmas list, it’s not too late for this tax year. Contact Yvonne Hull ([email protected]) or myself to discuss options.
But most of all, I want to thank you, the community, for all you have done and continue to do for our college. Neosho County Community College is successful because of your steadfast support since 1936. We respect what you give us. We give back quality of life improvement through creation of a skilled workforce, providing an educated electorate, student volunteers for area events, free room usage for non-profits and government agencies, area entertainment such as athletic events, concerts and plays, programing for citizens of all ages from kids’ summer camp to lifetime learning, and on and on. I know we would not exist without your continued support. Thank you so much.
It is time to light the tree, make that very long grocery list for the parties, trick your spouse into standing under the mistletoe, wrap some presents (make sure not to use duct tape if you can, it does take away a little bit of the Christmas magic), and gather friends and family for some quality time, no matter the exact date. And remember, if you sing Christmas carols as a cat, all you need to know is meow.
On behalf of all of us at Neosho County Community College, to you and your family, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a very Happy New Year!
If you have any questions about this column, want to know how to trick your spouse to stand under the mistletoe, or anything else, please contact me at [email protected].
