I am grateful that I can embrace the meaning of Emmanuel this year.

I am grateful for FRIGID temperatures on their way. It will feel like Chr-r-r-r-istmas.

I am grateful for bourbon balls with 120 proof alcohol, whatever that means, that made the office smell like a tavern and caused the best weekly project management meeting in the history of project management meetings, with the boss on the floor in a fit of laughter, funny comments and faces, thoughts that morphed into giggles and guffaws, a 3-person crowd wave to celebrate who knows what, and memories to last forever.

I am grateful that my Dad is going to spend Christmas in Florida with Aunt Patsy and Uncle Charlie.

I am grateful for another subtle reminder from my sister that I have become a complainer and need to get back to consistent gratitude and the counting of blessings.

I am still grateful that Jesus loves even me.

I am grateful for cookies, cookies, and more cookies – baked, packaged, given, and received.

I am grateful for frosted sugar cookies…that someone ELSE makes.

I am grateful for a break from the norm this evening to go on a date with my Dad and my sister. We are going to go see “Big Sonia.”

Home

I am grateful for anticipation of a very nice Christmas Eve dinner with Joyce and Mike and then our Christmas Eve service afterwards.

I am grateful, because I am supposed to be grateful, and maybe if I say it enough, I will be – I am grateful for the busiest Christmas ever. That needs to be a junior high classroom play. Instead of “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” someone needs to write, “The Busiest Christmas Season Ever.” It could be quite a hoot. Or a lesson.

Between extra hours at work due to the entire support staff out for either the month or the last two weeks of the year, Christmas present shopping not yet a thought in the mind, cookies needing to be baked and packaged and delivered, company gone but rooms not ready for the next wave of company that arrives in four days, grandchildren coming to stay as soon as wave #2 leaves, thank you notes to write, an empty refrigerator to stock, a house to clean, volunteering to do, closets to clean out…

And I will be so grateful for any moments of reflection and quiet and peace and calm and “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown,” and I will be grateful to see 2017 come to an end, with much anticipation for what 2018 holds for us.