A BLESSED AND MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!!!

The big day is just a few days away now. Here's a heartfelt wish prayer and blessing to you, friends visible and invisible:

A MERRY AND BLESSED CHRISTMAS
TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILIES!!

May God's grace peace and love
be with you all on Christmas Day and the rest of your life.
Stay blessed, be blessed, and essentially be a blessing to others
with every gift of a new day.

IT'S NOT JUST A CHRISTMAS TREE

My tree continually evolves changing through every passing of time year after year after year. Sometimes it's so sparse with barely a tinsel hanging on its branches. Tough times but the Christmas spirit kept alive with love all around from everybody near or far. Then again in another year there would be tiny rag dolls the size of a finger in colorful peasant dresses. Yes indeed it was for three little girls who just love dolls. In other years the tree would be laden with very small bells or balls or shimmering ribbons or light cotton angels or butterflies speckled with glitter dust or tiny Santas made out of red yarn. And there was that year when I created miniature gift boxes tied in red and green ribbons. But whatever the theme on the tree, it would never be without Christmas lights.. circling the tree from top to bottom.. twinkling like stars up in the night sky. Sometimes we put one which twinkled in step with its pre-recorded Christmas music.

This year my tree, the same one we've had for some years now, is trimmed with tinsel and decor of past four Christmases --- it holds both the old and the new. For me...

- a Christmas tree is not just a Christmas tree. It doesn't only stand there as another form, one of many, in celebrating the season. Rather it stands tall & proud a witness to dozens of Christmases past, of celebrations with family & friends, of memories of precious love and sharing, of countless blessings. It bears witness to eternal hope, courage, trust, belief, faith, familial love and God. All Christmas trees in homes everywhere, I think, bear that message. I love Christmas trees!

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