The Night Before Christmas

Here we are on another Christmas Eve.  The gifts are wrapped, the food prepared and waiting for tomorrow’s big dinner with the family.  I’m on the grownup end of the holidays; but I still love Christmas.   

This was always a magical night when I was a child; I remember my grandfather holding me as we watched out the window for a shadow that might mean Santa was passing overhead.   Then it was off to bed to try and sleep; Santa doesn’t really come till he knows you’re sleeping.

As an adult it seems I can no longer achieve that peaceful sleep I knew as a child; that was a time before I knew about sickness, the homeless, death, the hungry and the broken.   Now celebration is tempered with the understanding of other people’s pain; the real definition of growing up.

So many of the presents I received as a child have disappeared into the blackness of my memory; the gifts received as a by-product of growing older will stay with me forever.  I'd like to share a few of those gifts with you: 

      Never wait for the misfortune of others to make you appreciate what you have right now.

            Never pass up a chance to be kind…it is much more important than being right.

                                        Take nothing for granted….nothing.

Look for the beauty around you to fill the spaces that can just as easily be inhabited by ugliness.

                         Be grateful for everything; the world owes you nothing.

                          Nothing lasts forever....nothing good and nothing bad.

 

                Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!!!!

                                                                    Life is Good