耶穌愛你 that's 耶穌愛你

Hello everyone, And may the Father the Son and The Holy Spirit be with you this day.


Many moons ago, I worked as a Assistant Manager at Catalogue Clearance Shop, and I can only really tell this story as the company is defunct and no longer exists.
Our job was to clear through end of line items, returns from customers or damaged products that couldn't be resold through the Catalogue, and I can assure you we got some of the strangest things to sell, for example it wouldn't be uncommon to get 3 legged beds or size 16 high heels shoes for that lady with the bigger foot!  We got Betamax video recorders, Dolly Parton snow globes, and a Spit the Dog board game, you name it we got it even if I am slightly over egging the cake for comedy purposes!
Quite often we would also receive cheap selling lines known as I Buys and once again the products we got were virtually not fit for sale, for example Torquay United keyrings and Art Attack pencil cases weren't flying out of the door in the Lancashire Town of Chorley were I worked.
Now about 6 weeks before Christmas and this bit is true, we received about a thousand cute little soft toys, doggies, bears, pussy cats, rabbits, and koalas and from a distance they looked really quite cute, but when we opened them up they had a rather unusual wording upon them. It wasn't in English and this was what was displayed, 耶穌愛你   Now unless you are able to read the great word of China, you probably will have no idea what this means, and nor did we, and after some calls to head office it was confirmed by our International buyers that  耶穌愛你 in English meant the very sweet, JESUS LOVES YOU !.
When this was established I can assure you we laughed like silly school children, How the flippin heck are we going to sell a 1000 耶穌愛你 fluffy toys. I was pretty confident that whilst Chorley was not the Christian Mecca of the western world, there were a good number of christians in the town but would they want a fluffy toy that read Jesus Loves You in a foreign language? Course they blooming wouldn't!
Well we put them out in the vague hope that the local Oriental takeway giant would pop in a buy them on mass for his friends and customers but all to no avail.
Then out of the blue I had a brain wave, It was  a real , "Dyson, Google, Apple" moment. "I know what" I said to my boss, "A Santas grotto", I carried on, " I'll dress up as Santa, we can charge a pound (that was there recommended retail price) and I can give them the option of a 
 耶穌愛你 soft toy or some out of date bubbles as an alternative"! 
What a great idea we all agreed, and so the next thing was to build the grotto, but unfortunately space was of a premium particularly at Christmas, and the damaged Sun Loungers weren't doing a roaring trade in late November! However not to be defeated, "I trucked on" and after some negotiating with the boss I managed to acquire a raised plinth that was displaying a woman dummy displaying a size 26 diamonte 2 piece bikini. The space was just enough to accommodate a deck chair and  a damaged Winnie the Pooh child seat. It was a serious contravention of any H & S policies.
With the help of Andrea, my supervisor, we built a cardboard wall around the plinth and decorated it with cotton wool, and crepe paper to give it a authentic look of winter. 
On stepping back to admire our structure, I can only tell you myself and Andrea laughed, and laughed and laughed, and bloomin laughed. It looked more we had created a scene from Stig of the Dump and every time someone walked by it wobbled as it was in serious danger of collapse.
So we were ready, the next Saturday was going to be our trial run and hopefully our
耶穌愛你 toys were going to fly out the door.
We put our Max Bygraves, Sing a long a christmas tape on, I got into my Father Christmas outfit which was okay except there was a slight problem with the beard, it was missing !
 So along came Saturday and there I was squeezed into my grotto waiting for my first customer, in my outfit, minus the beard, listening to Max's jazzed up version of Come All Ye faithful sweating profusely as I had a couple of "recalled" pillows stuffed down my outfit.
  It was very quiet and it got hotter and hotter, I was rather pleased the beard was missing if the truth be known but after my return from lunch an orderly que of children had formed to meet Santa.
Andrea was on queue management duties and she gave all the children strict instructions not to touch the grotto walls as they were not in great shape and could collapse at any moment.
Once they were all put at ease the proceedings could commence, and so the first child entered, and sat before me, and looked at me with utter bewilderment "Hello I said" no response, I tried to make light conversation, I said to the little child before me "Have got anything you want to ask me?" to which the reply came "Yes where's your beard?" I can't remember my response but I laughed out loud. I recall the out of date bubbles were doing a roaring trade. My next victim blue my cover, and it was long after this that the grotto ceased trading. This little girl came into my grotto, and I started my patter, Only for her to say in a loud frustrated voice, "Your not Father Christmas, I saw you building a 3 legged bunk bed last week" and with that she left in disgust with me holding some out of date bubbles and a 耶穌愛你 koala bear as a gift from Santa.
Not long after, we dismantled our Grotto, and put our soft toys back on the shelf. It was a event that did bring much joy, not to the children but certainly to the staff and the parents. 
I hope it brought a titter to your face this day.
And remember                                

                                耶穌愛你
                        JESUS LOVES YOU