Five Christmas Offerings  December 19, 2021

Five Christmas Offerings

December 19, 2021David R. Kotok

Chairman of the Board & Chief Investment Officer

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We wish our clients, consultants, staff, friends, and all readers a happy Christmas and a peaceful and safe new year. As we look ahead together to pandemic year three, please stay vigilant. Here are five noneconomic offerings for consideration this holiday season.

1. Let’s start with “If—” by Rudyard Kipling, a best-loved poem that Kipling addressed to his son. The poem’s encouragement to integrity, fortitude, and resilience resonates with these Pandemic times.

If you can keep your head when all about you  

   Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,  

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

   But make allowance for their doubting too;  

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

   Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

   And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;  

   If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;  

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

   And treat those two impostors just the same;  

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

   Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

   And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

   And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

   And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

   To serve your turn long after they are gone,  

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

   Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,  

   Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

   If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

   With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,  

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,  

   And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

“Brother Square-Toes” chapter, Rewards and Fairies (1910), sourced from A Choice of Kipling's Verse (1943) at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if---

2. Let’s celebrate Christmas with a tease from Amsterdam. We give you a mall, Rembrandt, chickens, muskets, and music, courtesy of the Rijksmuseum.

“Onze helden zijn terug!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6W2ZMpsxhg

3. We’d like to suggest taking a few minutes to listen to a brief, unforgettable message from an icon as we reflect on the spiritual side of the holiday season and on our shared future. Sir David Attenborough addresses COP26 climate summit delegates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKoqQTRERnA

4. Next, we offer an inspiring global reprise of a theme song played by others and commonly in a sing-along version at Camp Kotok, Leen’s Lodge, Maine.

“The Weight,” featuring Ringo Starr and Robbie Robertson (Playing For Change | Song Around The World)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph1GU1qQ1zQ

5. Lastly, we hope readers can find the time to experience John Mauceri’s rendition of the classic Christmas story from Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker,” based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s book. It’s a marvelous and mesmerizing musical retelling of the familiar tale.  

“The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,”

https://www.pbs.org/video/the-nutcracker-and-the-mouse-king-meabwt/

 Please have a Happy Christmas and a safe New Year.