This period of the year has always been associated with so much activity ever since I can remember. The young would be busy with school events associated with Christmas or New Year mainly parties, gift exchanges, decorations, programs and of course there’s the anticipation of presents, lots of foods and a two-week break from school. When one gets out of school and gets a job, similar activities are still participated in usually in an office environment, except the two-week break that is only enjoyed by those working for schools or businesses catering to students. Because of the newly found freedom to buy through one’s hard-earned money, shopping becomes a welcome pursuit during the holidays.
When one gets to be a parent of a toddler, it takes on a whole new level as the child can now get to participate in decorating and in other family activities. Anticipating gifts takes on a new dimension for the family as the concept of the ultimate gift-giver, Santa Claus, is introduced. The paradigm for shopping also shifts as one becomes truly more of a giver and expects less for him/her self.
Some of you might be wondering where I’ve been the past couple of weeks. Because my last two posts were related to HubPages, some might assume that I got carried away with the title “HubNugget” that I acquired after my first hub (or article) made it to the top five among newbies, and I either went crazy writing tons of articles for that site or I merely froze, got blocked and did no writing at all.
We’ll the euphoria may have lasted that long but unfortunately it did not translate into a writing frenzy, or a writer’s block either. On top of the above usual holiday planning and activities, the computer and the laptop were working overtime. Again not so much on actual writing but on communicating, laying out plans, getting into the online shopping craze, and learning new stuff about internet marketing.
Communicating and Planning
These got to do with my role as representative of my family (we call it a “branch”) to a team in-charge of preparations related to our late mother’s big clan’s annual activity. Two branches were designated as sponsors and we had to coordinate with eight other branches in behalf of almost 200 clan members. It’s no mean feat as we are trying to introduce new activities to our annual reunion held every first day of the new year, which actually coincides with my late maternal grandma’s birthday.
As the clan gets bigger, it became so difficult to know one another even though majority of members live within the city and surrounding areas. We only see most of our relatives once a year during this event. Previous reunions have focused on the usual food, games and lining up to receive a small bill from our uncles. This coming reunion, we plan to organize around the theme of getting to know each other. Thus, a lot of pre-event activities are required not only for the sponsors, but for the rest of the clan members as well. I promise to elaborate on this in a different blog.
Getting into Online Shopping Craze
The mention of online shopping craze above might have given you the impression that we extended our holiday spending beyond the usual mall and bazaar shopping. On the contrary, we tried our luck writing short articles intended to make shopping online convenient for shoppers around the globe. My wife wrote the following articles at Hubpages to provide Christmas gift ideas for kids:
We worried a bit as the peak shopping happens the day after Thanksgiving in the United States and we only learned about this moneymaking writing a few days after. Well our efforts had not been in vain, it actually already paid off. Just a few minutes ago, my wife made her first sale and according to a report, she sold six items referred through her article and one of them got shipped already! Hopefully it’s only the beginning.
Learning Internet Marketing
Finally, learning about internet marketing took a lot of my time as well. There’s so much to know and to do to make money through writing online. As we have already taken our first steps to this internet adventure through this blog, Parenting Journey and WannaBeHappyNow.com over the past weeks, we now endeavor to make more from our efforts.
We launched a new website also focusing on happiness named HAPPY QUOTES, HAPPY IMAGES with quite a different format and approach. I hope you’ll visit it and enjoy its features. Quite limited now but it would definitely get better with age. So please check it out.
So that hopefully explains the lull in activities in FATHERHOOD ADVENTURES. Now the challenge for me is how to maintain a balance among these various interests and at the same time fulfill my obligations as husband and father.
UPDATE: My own wish list aka gift ideas is already published here.
Subscribe in a reader
Posts
Great Finds and Gifts! Anyway, Please check out this video on Filipino kids' independence. Thanks! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYUHkidQpW0
Hi Peach! Thanks for checking out the links. I watched the video and it was quite interesting and the reported research findings surprising. I am just wondering who did the research and the methodology involved. If the kids knew they were videotaped or being studied, it's a dead giveaway that their behavior would be altered that would make the research inconclusive at best. Thanks for referring the video.