Today the sun yanked off her cloud covers, broke through the rolled up banks of purple and cigar smoke clouds, and beamed down her beautiful warm smile on Mother Earth. I was walking Penelope and felt the sun’s kisses on my face. As the hour of sunset approached, Mother Nature dressed the sun in a formal gown of canteloupe orange silk and sent her down the horizon on the arm of Father Sky. As they walked through the pale light of eventide, Mother Nature painted the horizon in glorious brushstrokes of white, blueberry and peach watercolors. So beautiful to watch the layers form in their contrasting colors like a delicious dessert of fruity sherbet in a crystal compote. I could see a starched monogramed linen napkin and a sterling silver ice cream fork resting beside the compote on the horizon. I love a beautiful table setting and Mother Nature sets a fine table on the horizon. Turning around to watch Mother Nature’s painting, Father Sky was late waking the moon and stars as he ran back to kiss the sun goodnight. The moon woke himself, dressed up in his waning gibbous tuxedo, and took center stage in the mulberry sky, gathering his jeweled friends all around him. The night sky pageant began as the day’s light dimmed.

Been writing this blog for three years and never once have I thought to look up quotes about Christmas till today. I’ve enjoyed researching holiday quotes this afternoon. Trying to pick one as a favorite. I think Laura Ingalls Wilder captured Christmas when she wrote — “Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmastime.” My large extended family has given me so many glorious holiday memories throughout my life. My Christmas memories from my McMurray grandmother’s holiday dinners are so precious to me. Don’t have any photos from those celebrations but a scrapbook of remembrances is engraved on my heart.

I do have a photo of my oldest son, now in his forties, sitting in my grandmother McMurray’s lap after one of those family Christmas dinners. Mama Doris, dressed in her apron, Thomas sitting in her lap dressed in his red velvet Christmas bubble suit, white high top shoes. He was six months old. She died on Christmas Day in 1989 at age 90. Now I’m the grandmother celebrating my McMurray family Christmas dinners at my home, setting places for 43 folks, creating glorious memories for my grandchildren and their cousins. I hope my children and my brothers’ children will keep the holiday traditions going after we’re gone. “The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other,” Burton Hills.

Life is truly what we make it. We can have sunny days even when there are storms blowing if we’ll just stop and be grateful for the many blessings we have. God gives us so many wondrous blessings and we just take them for granted, not realizing the significance of the little moments that paint glorious pictures in our memories when we’re older. So many small moments go unobserved. The older I get, I’m more mindful of the little moments of happiness that God places in my life.

If you have an empty chair at your dining room table this Christmas, I feel your pain. Life does goes on and we all eventually learn to live again. You can be sad but don’t live life sadly. The world with all her glory is a wonder to experience!

“It’s not what’s on the table that matters, it’s who’s in the chairs.” — Unknown