Welcome to the weekend. I don’t know about wherever you might be but at my house it is a rainy but warm morning. I guess it rained a good portion of the night. I know tha we were under a slight chance for thunderstorms but if that happened —-I sure didn’t hear it. But forecast today is for rain on and off until this afternoon.

Welcome to December. Gosh, only twenty five days until Christmas. I still have not bought anything for Ms. Kate for Christmas or for her birthday which is on Christmas Eve.  Frankly, I’m at a loss, as usual as to what to get her. We’re at that age where we don’t need anything and if we do, we buy it. The last thing we need it to have more “stuff” sitting around our house. We hardly have room for what we have now. Her present to me this year is the new bird feeder that we just put up last weekend. She had said that could be a “communal present” but I’m not satisfied with that answer. She did give me one idea so I need to go shopping and see what I find.

I know I didn’t write yesterday but we had a quasi-busy day. She worked on Christmas cards, I did some sermon work, and we went out for ‘schrooms & beer” with Bob and Brenda at lunch time. We had a really good visit and got all caught up on our family gossip, and church gossip, and who’s doing what to who. We always love our visits and look forward to them. With the busy Christmas season coming on, it is possible that we won’t get together until after Christmas now.

So how about you? Are you getting in the Christmas spirit yet or are you dreading all of the “things” you have to do between now and then? I think todayMs. Kate and I are going to root through the storage and pull out Christmas decoration stuff and do the tree. You and I both know that no one is going to see our tree except us and Julie and Jim, —- but it means something to Ms. Kate so I reckon we’ll do it. And that is pretty much what Christmas is about isn’t it —- doing things for others? So part of my Christmas present to her is to go to the trouble to pull out all of this deeeply buried stuff and let her decorate however she wants. If there is one thing I know; it is that I certainly wouldn’t want to be having Christmas without her. We’ve been there done that because of military assignments and they were the most miserable Christmas’s ever. We have friends who lost spouses this year who were either our age or not much older than us. That’s not a thing I want to even think about, but is a reality. So —- I hope you are getting in the Christmaas swing of things and putting on your “ho-ho-ho!” After all we are celebrating the greatest event in the history of the earth —- God sent a part of himself to earth in the form of a baby; to grow up and teach us and let us experience the power and wonder of God, and then to sacrifice himself for the salvation of mankind. Talk about “giving” —- that was the greatest present ever in the history of the universe. Some of you may not accept or believe what we Christins profess to be truth. I would only hope that, and yes pray that, you will open your mind to the possibility of Jesus Christ and read the teachings of Jesus with an open mind. You have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain. Peace my friends.