Well, we had our family Christmas dinner tonight with delicious food and lots of laughter. The children were so happy and full of Christmas excitement. It’s been another beautiful day. Was too excited myself to gaze at the sunset. I don’t even know what kind of sky canvas Father Sky painted today but I know it was wondrous and cold and windy. Perfect weather for the Christmas holidays.

I’m full as a tick and counting my blessings. My company are all snug in their beds. I’m sitting in my feeted pajamas thinking of how blessed I am to have my brothers and their families. My grandchildren, in their bedroom, are sleeping sweetly, all snuggled down in their covers, worn out from playing with their cousins, breathing the happy sighs of contentment. My furnace is chugging away, set on 72, and happy to finally get a good day’s work in. It would probably be sad to be a steam boiler and never get a good boil going. Stew and I are used to the cold but I don’t want my grandbabies to be cold.

I have lots of framed photos of Christmas with my family and I display them at Christmas. My family enjoy them and we all talk of how quickly our children grew up and how fast our grandchildren are maturing. All the grandchildren enjoy seeing the photos of their parents as children at Christmas. Time is really fleeting. I remember when my children were young, Chief’s sister would walk around our house shaking jingle bells at their bedtime on Christmas Eve. This always thrilled our children and they’d burrow down in their covers, eyes shining with excitement of thinking of Santa Claus getting close. Those were blissful, beautiful, happy days.

Thought a lot about Chief and Rosie today and the milestones they’ve missed in our families. After Rosie died Chief and I would decorate a small Christmas tree for her at our family cemetery. Talk about a sad experience, take a Christmas tree to the grave of your child. It wrenches your heart. Chief bought some beautiful little fragile glass angels for her tree. We’d take the tree over on Christmas Eve. Years later we had a large china urn that we’d fill with cedar and boxwood and nandina berries. One year it was so cold the urn froze and broke in two pieces, course I saved the pieces, determined to glue it back together. Later I took a bird bath and a bird feeder to the cemetery and would sit on the iron park bench my feed store friend gave us thinking about Rosie and watching the birds. When we got to the cemetery for Chief’s funeral I noticed someone had stolen the park bench. I’d love to have one more Christmas with Chief and Rosie sitting around the table with us but those days can’t be. But don’t you know Christmas is gloriously celebrated in heaven, the music splendorous, the pomp and circumstance celebrating Jesus’ birthday.

Christmas is celebrated to remember the birth of Jesus Christ. He was God’s gift to us to save us from our sins. Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” God gives us grace and we make the choice to receive it. Our Christian faith is based on grace and God’s grace has given us salvation. The biblical definition of grace is underserved favor. We don’t earn God’s grace, it’s freely given to us. God doesn’t keep track of our successes and failures. God gives his goodness freely to all of us. God’s grace not only offers salvation but also secures it.

“God never gives someone a gift they are not capable of receiving. If he gives us the gift of Christmas, it is because we all have the ability to understand it and receive it,” Pope Francis. The greatest gift we can ever receive is the gift of God’s son, Jesus. The gift of Christmas is Jesus. If we accept Jesus into our hearts, we have the light of God in our hearts. God’s unconditional love gifts our lives with love, and peace, and mercy. God’s gift of eternal life offers us a reunion with our loved ones in heaven. Jesus’ birth is the reason for the Christmas season. God gave us the gift of Christmas.

“Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.” — Unknown