Chicken Soup For The Soul With Amy Newmark

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and today we’re talking about the holidays, with two stories from our new bestseller Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Magic of Christmas. These stories are about Christmas AND Hanukkah, and how plenty of people manage to celebrate both every year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul. Christmas is just about here, but I know I’m already looking forward to what’s coming in the new year as well. We ended our holiday book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Tales of Christmas, with a few New Year’s stories and I’m going to share a couple of them with you today, about traditions you might want to start for yourself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul. Today’s episode is all about naughty and nice as we head into the final days before Christmas. I’ve got two very funny stories to share today, one about a grandma ingesting stuffing made with a very special herb that was supposed to be just for the twenty-somethings at their family dinner, and one about taking a Christmas card photo in a very unauthorized location. Let’s start with that one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul. I don’t know about you, but I have to say that some of my favorite holiday stories are about the various disasters that have befallen our family events—whether it was a totally raw turkey, or a power failure on Christmas Eve, or an easy to assemble gift that was anything but. Then of course there’s the golden retriever eating all the dessert while everyone’s in another room, or the natural tree that came complete with natural bugs, or the gift forgotten in the back of a closet. Or the time that I wrote “Mom” on the gift list for my children, then shared it with my mother-in-law and she thought “Mom” was her, not my mother, so the kids got two of everything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul. You know, Christmas is often a time of reflection and a time for remembering the family members who are no longer with us, and that’s hard. But there are so many amazing memories of those people as well, and we carry those with us into our holiday celebrations. My mother died a few days after Christmas seven years ago, so the last time I saw her before she was hospitalized was at my Christmas Eve party. She had such a good time that she and my father were the last to leave. Every other year they had been the first to leave, so I think that somehow, subconsciously, she knew it was her last Christmas. And now I share all her Christmas gifts with my grown children, mostly the excessive number of Christmas ornaments that she loved to give me each year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and today we’re talking about Christmas. Now, there are times when you’re not expecting the holidays to be as good as they usually are. Maybe you’re home sick, or your family members aren’t available because they’re with in-laws or traveling, or it’s a tough year financially… Well, I know I’ve been through those less than stellar Christmases once in a while. But there are ways to turn things around. And that’s what we’re going to hear about today in two stories from our Magic of Christmas Coloring Book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and today we’re talking about Christmas. Now you may think it’s all gotten too commercial and it’s all about getting gifts, but that’s not what see at Chicken Soup for the Soul. We see a focus on families getting together, and people enjoying the giving way more than the receiving, and people looking out for others in their communities. And that extends all the way down to the kids, who demonstrate all the attributes you’d want to see as far as generosity and compassion are concerned. So today I’m going to share a couple of stories about the natural generosity of kids at Christmastime, from our brand-new coloring book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Magic of Christmas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and today we’re talking about miracles, the ones that seem to abound during the holiday season. We get so many stories about miracles and other unexplained but very cool things like coincidences and answered prayers, and we included a whole chapter of them in our new book Chicken Soup for the Soul: Tales of Christmas. And what could be better than a miracle involving a puppy that was supposed to die on Christmas Eve but ended up thriving? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and today we’re talking about the holidays and those special, traditional dishes that families have every year. I know they’re tradition, but has anyone ever asked if anyone actually likes them? It turns out that sometimes people have been polite—for decades—and no one has ever said anything. I know that happened in my family. We had an Italian grandmother who made these awful, dry, weird cookies that we all hated. But Grandamama made them every year, and every year, after she went to bed, we would hide them in the trash compactor. The next morning she would see they were all gone, and of course she would make them again the next year because we all seemed to love them so much. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and the race is on. Whether you’re celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah or something else this month, you’re probably working on your gift list. So today I want to share two stories about wonderful gifts that required a lot of imagination and not a lot of money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul. Today we’re talking about how to make the perfect Christmas—by accepting imperfection and learning how to enjoy the holidays instead of stressing over every little detail. I’ve always loved that quote about how it matters more who is sitting AROUND the table than what is ON the table, and that applies to all the different aspects of the holidays. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul. Today we’re talking about forgiveness, which I believe is essential to being happy. If you’re carrying around all those resentments and disappointments and anger it can be quite a heavy load. One of the ways to free yourself is to make sure that you understand all the facts before you get angry, and I’m going to share two stories about that from our new book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Forgiveness Fix. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with today’s Chicken Soup for the Soul inspiration from our bestselling book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Think Positive, Live Happy. If you’re like me you like being in control, but today I’m going to share a couple of stories about how sometimes giving up control and accepting a different perspective can vastly improve your life. And by the way these stories are from real Type-A people! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and today we’re talking about Christmas gifts and spouses and all the kinds of things that can go wrong when a spouse tries really really hard to finally pick out the best Christmas gift ever. I know I’ve had some epic fails myself when trying to find a great gift for my husband. I remember one year I went to the dentist and while I was under the influence of gas I told the dental tech that I had just figured out my whole Christmas shopping list and I made her write it down as I dictated it. And that’s why my new husband got a crystal pair of swans… because they mate for life and I thought it was a very romantic gift… and somehow even when the effect of the gas wore off I didn’t come to my senses. He was not impressed and I think we were both relieved when his housecleaner broke the swans and we had to throw them away. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul. So have you ever been in a line waiting for a store to open its doors for Black Friday? Well Phil Baisley was, and he said that Christmas came early for him that year because everyone in the line banded together while they were waiting, sharing advice, coats, and good cheer. And we have another story for today, from Allison Lynn Flemming, about how a community came together at a church to put on a huge outdoor show, where you could walk from one stage to the next, watching the actors portray scenes from the nativity. It was such a cool idea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with a couple of fun Christmas stories for you—about The Tree, which of course is a big focus for most of us in December. I never make a big deal out of getting a perfect tree when I’m picking one out at the garden store, because I don’t really mind if it has one bad side that I have to face into the wall. But I do gaze at it a lot at home once it’s decorated. Every year we seem to compliment ourselves on how the tree is particularly nice this year even if I bought a quite obviously flawed one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and today I’m going to share a couple of stories with you from our newest book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Time for Christmas. I know Christmas is still a couple of months off, but in the meantime we have Thanksgiving, and that usually means turkey, and that often means turkey disasters. So if you’ve ever had a turkey disaster of your own, or you fear that one is coming down the road for you, I have stories for you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and today I’m going to share two stories with you from Chicken Soup for the Soul: Angels and the Miraculous. Today’s stories are about miraculous saves, those times when someone or something came to the aid of a person in a way that just can’t be explained. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and today I’m going to share a couple of stories with you from our newest book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Time for Christmas. So I know it’s early to be talking about Christmas, but this book is out now because that’s when the retailers want to see Christmas books hit the shelves. The good thing is that we always put lots of Thanksgiving stories in our holiday books, so they start feeling relevant right away. And today, since it’s only October, we’re going to talk about GETTING READY for Thanksgiving, and how to get your gratitude tuned up for the upcoming holiday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with a couple of fun Thanksgiving stories for you as we head toward the winter holiday season. We have a new book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Tales of Christmas, that has lots of Thanksgiving stories in it, plus a few about Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, and then of course the vast majority about Christmas. But I was struck by how many great stories we got about Thanksgiving this year, way more than usual. Thanksgiving is traditionally a family event, but it does lend itself even more than Christmas does to inviting non-family members. And that’s what we’re talking about today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices