The Christmas Season

I love the Christmas season. There is something about this time of year that brings out the best in people. I have noticed this year how kind and courteous strangers have been to me. People are quick to hold doors, offer help to carry things and even driving in heavy traffic has been fine.

I love Christmas traditions. In my family growing up, my mom always made a gingerbread house. Not the kind that comes in a kit like we use today. She would make gingerbread from scratch and then cut it out using a homemade pattern. She would decorate it with green gumdrops and red hots and it always had a little pretzel fence. The final touch would be the shredded coconut snow sprinkled on top. Each year we gather together at mom's house and each grandchild does their own house. Since there are eleven grandchildren now, the dads have to pitch in. I love the memories that we make.

I love delivering small gifts to our neighbors and friends. Last weekend we had a big snow storm on Friday night. We all went downstairs to the family room. We turned on the fireplace, put a movie on and sat together assembling our neighbor gifts. It was about 10:00 when we finished. The snow was still coming down hard when Rachel had the crazy idea to deliver all the gifts. Since it was late, we would just leave them on the doorsteps. We bundled up and loaded everything into the car. Sami slept, Mark drove, I navigated and the twins delivered the gifts. They had a great time running up and down the streets of our neighborhood. It took us longer than we planned due to the snowball fights that kept breaking out, but we finally finished at midnight.

Last night we had a special Christmas dinner at our church for all the women. The food was wonderful and it was great to see so many friends. Following the dinner was a beautiful program. It was about the Savior's birth seen through the eyes of women such as the innkeeper's wife, the shepherd's wife and others. Rachel was there with me because she was singing as part of the program. On the way home she said, "Mom I just have a warm feeling inside when I think about Jesus".

A warm feeling inside. That pretty much says it all.