Tis the Season. Welcome to the busy-ness of the Christmas season.

Difficult times, and the Holiday season make a very stressful time. I remember other times when we have had times like these and we have always come through them. This time I am sure will be no different, however getting through the holiday season is rough.

This will be the third Christmas season that I have not had my father to talk to. He passed away in July of 2007. In fact, we had his first funeral in San Antonio on our (my wife and I) 20^th anniversary. It was Wednesday July 11^th 2007. Not much of a celebration that year.

I remember when our family did things during the Christmas season. It was a time when the church was an integral part of our lives.  To some in our family it has never changed it’s importance, and my family is trying to renew it’s rightful place of importance.  We would have a meeting of some kind on Wednesday, and we would have Church services Sunday morning, followed by Sunday School, then youth group was Sunday night. I hated interrupting my day to go to church, but I am so glad that we went. Some of my fondest memories are from church meetings of one type or another.

I remember going Christmas caroling with my parents Sunday School class, and I remember going with the youth group too. This was in Kansas, where snow would sometimes fall, and when we lived in Hays, in the middle of plains of western Kansas the wind would blow through you in December. Hot chocolate was blistering hot, but it has never tasted so good.

One particular Christmas was a very difficult time. We lived in a trailer house just outside of Hays. We had just moved there from Arnold and I don’t think that we had fully recovered financially from that move. I don’t know if we could afford a tree that year, but my father picked out the largest tumbleweed that he could find rolling by the field near our house. This was a time when the aluminium silver trees were in vogue, and Dad painted the tumbleweed silver just like one of those shiny expensive trees. You know there are very few things that I remember getting for Christmas in any year, but I remember the laughter, the smells of the food being cooked, and the surprises that we had no matter what we wanted, or what we got. The joy of Christmas is the company that we keep, and when you share a Christmas, those who share it with you, are your family.