Many conclusions have been drawn about the significance and meaning of the popular Christmas carol, The Twelve Days of Christmas. All in all, there’s a common understanding that they were all gifts delivered around Christmas.
Since 1984, the PNC Bank has used the collective costs of the gifts mentioned in this song as some kind of economic indicator. What the PNC Bank does is they calculate the total cost of the 364 gifts delivered in the song. According to Wikipedia and The Washington Post, two pricing charts are created, referred to as the Christmas Price Index and The True Cost of Christmas. The former is an index of the current costs of one set of each of the gifts given by the True Love to the singer of the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. The latter is the cumulative cost of all the gifts with the repetitions listed in the song. The people mentioned in the song are hired, not purchased. The total costs of all goods and services for the 2015 Christmas Price Index is $34,130.99, or $155,407.18 for all 364 items. The original 1984 cost was $12,623.10.
While the approach has been criticized (using this ‘tongue-in-cheek’ approach of a mere Christmas song to analyze how much an economy has changed may not), its lessons have been a subtle nudge, reminding me to analyze my year so far juxtaposing my observations with the recent years past.
I can only come out here on this public platform to announce how grateful I am for a responsive year! I may not be able to remember in detail, the previous years but this year has been by far the most rewarding! It has been quite convenient for me to complain about how this or these efforts I have put into these other things have not been successful; or how much I was let down by failed projects or unachieved projections. But the last few days have gotten me to look around to see how much I have achieved this year and how much I underestimated(and ‘underappreciated’) the results.
Amongst the many victories, this 2015 has seen the launch of my debut book, Things I Wanted To Tell You In Other Words. Since 2007, I had dreamed of my first book carrying that title, however the what’s and how’s were of nothing I had planned in detail till last year. I had an amazing book launch, and more importantly an unexpected turn over in sales especially through my Amazon sales channel. All this plus great feedback!
I not only made many new friends, I also sealed a number of long-term relationships, opportunities I am ever grateful for.
I probably have made the most mistakes this year, also pulled out of three businesses I have been proud of(and I still am). These experiences are an invaluable lesson in relationship and time management. I am the most conscious about my health too.
2015 was the turn up year! My creative juices turned up like never before, helping me lay foundations for passive income streams I had earlier only wished for.
With all of this said, I can only look forward to the next year, 2016. In 2016, I am excited to be launching a new and exciting product, details I can’t give just yet! But I am LOOKING FORWARD TO IT. Oh, by the way, just subscribe to my email list below to be notified first when I launch! But I can guaranty that this will also get you excited to!!!
Lastly, in October I had an idea for a photoshoot with the theme, The Three Wise Men(now a 2016 project). I had been really inspired by the account of the saint, Matthew on the journey of the Three Wise Men to the newly born child in Bethlehem. This historic account surely spelt out a bit of drama. Here: these three men who probably understood some astrology and science notice this really bright star. They decide to follow the star because they realized it was connected to the birth of a king. Oh ye They embark on this journey carrying gifts with them. They follow the star to this barn where this lady called Mary just gave birth. They offer the gifts, bow to this few-days-old child, leave, dream about how the current King plans to kill them and then just vanish from the rest of all historic narratives.
How did these strange men know that a King had come?
