Candy Canes, Mistletoe, Christmas Pickles

The theme for our first December meeting was "December Traditions." As the Toastmaster for the day, I researched a few December traditions to share with the group throughout the meeting.

• Sticks of sugar shaped like a shepherd's crook was used by a choirmaster in the 1670s to quiet the younger children during long services. These became what we know today as the candy cane.
• Mistletoe is a parasitic plant. In the 1800s, couples would kiss under the mistletoe, plucking a berry after each kiss. Once all the berries were gone, the kissing stopped.
• The Christmas pickle ornament is hidden in the Christmas tree.  The first child to find the ornament on Christmas morning gets an extra present.

Our first speaker of the day was Richard, a member of Toastmasters for only a few weeks!  He presented his Ice Breaker speech from the Competent Communication manual. He opened up to us about one of his weaknesses, told us about his family, and shared his interest in being a lifelong learner. Ken, our second speaker, presented Project #3 from the Storytelling manual. We learned about a few interesting methods he used to teach classic stories to this sons. One of the adventures they went on included taking a trip to a fish farm when they read Moby-Dick.

Jeff tried out a new method for Table Topics this week which I thought was very successful!  Instead of posing a question, he used word association and allowed us to take our answers down our own paths. We took one to two minutes to present our thoughts on Santa Claus, Black Friday, Christmas Movies, and Holiday Foods. Is this the start to a new Top of Texas tradition?!

Submitted By
Lina Choun