Bright sunshine and a clear blue sky greet me this morning. It is thirty nine degrees but little tono breeze so it shouldn’t feel too bad out side. Neither the birds nor the squirrels have puffed themselves up for warmth. As usual, the sun shining on the feather of the male cardinals makes them the bright spot in he back yard. I went out and filled sunflower seed feeders yesterday so there is ample food to give everybody a good feed today at the buffet. This morning’s guests include titmouse, nuthatch, finches, sparrows, cardinals, wrens, and of course the fuzzy tailed rats. It is amazing how many squirrels there are in this neighborhood. With the trees completely barren, I can see squirrels and squirrel nests in lots of the trees around the neighboring houses. I watch them come from house to house to my feeders.

My youngest daughter, Lisa, turned forty six today. It is hard to believe. It seems like it really wasn’t that long ago that I was forty-six. But, time does march on. Sunday at church the choir used a prop for the cantata that is made to look like an animal feeding trough to lay the baby Jesus in. Ms. Kate reminded me that forty-seven years ago they laid our middle daughter, Heather, in that same trough to be “the baby Jesus.” Heather was only three weeks old at the time. That trough has gotten pretty rickety over the past forty-seven years and I wouldn’t trust putting a baby in it today.

This morning Ms. Kate is baking cookies again. Yesterday she mixed up, and cut up the springerlie cookies. Then thy had to set out and dry out over night before she bakes them today. If you aren’t familiar with springerlies, they are an anise flavored German cookie and when they are sitting and drying or baking they fill the entire house with the wonderful smell of anise. I’ve always said that it wasn’t Christmas around our house until the springerlies were baked. There was a day when Ms. Kate would send tins of cookies to all the of girls and their families. But it is just us these days and she doesn’t do as many cookies and or as many kinds of cookies. I told her she didn’t have to make the springerlies this year if she didn’t want to but she insisted because it is tradition. Bless her heart. She sure takes good care of me. There isn’t a lot of things I’d rather have for a snack than a glass of milk and some cookies. Well, add a bowl of ice cream to that and it’s over the top and to the moon.

It is four days until Christmas. Four days until we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. It has been roughly 2018 years since the birth of that child. Were it just a story, it would have faded a millennia so. But truth never dies. The good news of the birth of a Savior is as fresh today as it was as the child lay there in the manger. God came to earth because God loved us that much. Peace.