Quick Christmas Pick

First of all, I would like to publicly thank my sister, Heidi, for giving me sixty free minutes of cell-phone therapy last night while I was shuttling kids to piano lessons. She patiently gave up an hour of her day to listen as I prattled on about my problems, administered some driver's seat discipline and placed my order at the Wendy's Drive-Thru. Sisters and cell phones have saved my sanity on more than one occasion.

Second, I would like to thank her for sharing this book with me last Christmas.

If you haven't read it yet, click here and get a copy. Or come to my house and borrow it. You can read it with your family in less time than it takes to watch Charlie Brown's Christmas special and you will enjoy it a whole lot more. Sweet, simple, but not too sappy.

The last page includes this thought by Henry Van Dyke:

Are you willing...

To stoop down and consider the needs and desires of little children;

To remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old;

To stop asking how much your friends love you, and ask yourself whether you love them enough;

To bear in mind the things that other people have to bear in their hearts;

To trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you;

To make a grave for your ugly thoughts and a garden for your kindly feeling, with the gate open?

Are you willing to do these things for a day?

Then you can keep Christmas...

After, all Christmas-living is the best kind of Christmas-giving.

p.s. My mom wrote the sweetest Christmas post here...how blessed I am to have a family who continues to teach me the real meaning of the season.