December 2010 – Page 3 – 300 words a day

Round John Virgin and the Innkeeper.

Some kid makes a drawing of the Nativity scene. Everyone looks familiar except for a guy standing in the corner. “Who’s that?” asks his teacher or mom or Sunday school teacher. “That’s Round John Virgin,” says the kid. “You know, Round John Virgin, mother, and child.” It’s a cute story. It’s probably not true. The […]

by Jon Swanson

A little cranky. But not really.

When I hear people talking about wanting to go back to traditional Christmas celebrations, wanting to keep Christ in Christmas, I wonder what they mean. There is no mention in the Bible of how many wise men came looking for someone. There might have been three, but there might have been seven. Or five. Mary […]

by Jon Swanson

On keeping thank you notes.

A friend gave me some M&Ms. The fun size. The size with eight pieces in a package. She gave me three bags of these packages, about thirty little 8-piece-in-a-package packages. On one hand, I’d rather have them in one big bag, so I can eat them by the handful. After all, because they have peanuts […]

by Jon Swanson

The value of written processes

Yesterday, I added a video to the “about 300 words” page here. After I shot the video, I wondered what program I needed to use to convert the file to a format I could edit. It had been a few weeks. I went back to document I created in September that listed the transfer process […]

by Jon Swanson

making a list. checking it constantly.

You don’t need the cliches about holiday stress, about living up to expectations, about making sure that everything is memorable and perfect and enough. You just have to look down at that list on your desk. The one on the scrap of paper that you wrote last night when you couldn’t sleep and you realized […]