MERRY CHRISTMAS

Just had to say Merry Christmas to all our friends. I hope you have had a wonderful day with celebrating the season of love and giving and sharing.

Our family celebrated on Christmas Eve and it was fantastic. What a joy to hear laughter and see shining faces and huge smiles. We have a great time together.

Brent and Carolyn flew home to Moses Lake and Mark brought his sweet and beautiful friend Jeanette. She just fits right into our family. Seems like we have known her forever. What a doll!

Ned and I gave our traditional presentation of gifts, but this year we honored each adult individually. Everyone had to guess who I was describing. Such as: "This person loves to make fudge when they are not dropping turkeys." Immediately everyone guessed Bruce. Cute story behind his "turkey dropping". We then gave to every family a large bag of chocolate chips from Costco and some miniature marshmallows and a big spoon to stir it all. Another "honoring" was: "This person loves our flag" and before I could get any more out...like the words Thousand Island dressing and caffeine free Coke...they guessed our son in law Don who is in Afghanistan. Every family got a small flag, bottle of Thousand Island and a liter of caffeine free diet Coke. So went the evening for each of our children and their spouses. For the grandchildren, I did them all together with the words, "This person used to come over every Friday and have lunch at my house. The lunch was macaroni and cheese and tuna sandwiches cut into fourths". All hands of our grandchildren went up. They remember those traditional Fridays and so do I!!!!

We played many group games and we were laughing so hard that I don't think there was a dry eye in the room. Much fun. Choice memories for our future.

A gift that I received from all of my children was a calendar with each page showing lots of family pictures on it....but that is not the only thing...on the calendar pages was marked birthdays and anniversaries...AND...every Sunday was marked with my children's names and that meant that for that entire week that son or daughter of ours, along with their wife or husband and their children would do something to help Ned and I out...whatever our needs were OR they would have us over for dinner one of the days of "their" week. I cried. What a beautiful precious gift. I have to thank my beautiful daughter in law Tina for making this gift....she knows the computer well and does such an outstanding job.

At this moment I have a turkey in the oven and so we will have turkey dinner for our daughter Julie and her children (they always have us over every Christmas) and our son Brad who is visiting with us a few days.

Things are good....good day...good times ....good friends....good to celebrate the man and His exemplar life. I love our Savior with all my heart and soul.

Mimi's Thought for the Day: If you are hurting right at this moment, find something to replace that hurt for a time with what you do have. Think of having a warm bed, a roof over your head, one pair of shoes to wear, water in your faucet, crackers in your cupboard. Now put a smile on your face. The majority of the people of this world do not have any of the things you do. Next picture our Savior Jesus Christ sitting beside you, holding you tightly, and telling you to lean on Him...to cast your burdens His way. He loves you and so do I!!!!