The Most Wonderful Time ...

Just when I thought my Christmas was ruined and it was going to be a miserable time, a minute thing happened that made it all worth it. My niece and I had decided weeks ago to stop at IHOP after work on Christmas morning. It wasn't until a couple of days before Christmas that I decided even though my Christmas was going to suck, why not make someone else's day more pleasant? So we decided to leave our waitress with a hefty tip.

Unfortunately, things started off rough. We finished work around 5:30 am, but IHOP didn't open up until 6 am on Christmas morning. I still had one more present to get for Christmas. It was from my mom for my dog :-) However, 99% of the stores were closed in our area. We were heading back to IHOP and I came up with a brilliant idea. I wanted to try the Walgreens down the street. They are usually open 24 hours and have pet supplies. I hoped they would be open on Christmas morning.

To my surprise, they were open and what's even better was Channel 7 News was there reporting on last minute shoppers at one of the few stores open on that morning. The reporter asked to follow us around and then he interviewed us. We appeared on the news at 8 am that morning. Wow! That just about made my day.

But it wasn't the end to my newfound cheery disposition. We went to IHOP and did our thing. When we finished, we handed our waitress a $50 tip. There was one other waitress there. She had always waited on us before so we gave her a $30 tip. Both of them were genuinely surprised and gave us hugs. So we decided to leave $20 with the cook.

It was one of the greatest feelings in the world to bring joy to another human being and see the smiles upon their face. I guess it really is better to give than to receive.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!