Christmas Traditions

I was glad to open the blinds to the window in my living room yesterday morning and see a light dusting of snow on the ground. It seemed like the perfect setting in which to put up my Christmas tree in the afternoon. After I got the tree together, my beloved cat, Midnight, did what she does every year—she began to chew on the lower branches before I could even get the bulbs on the tree. When she finally settled down, she posed under the tree for me, just like she does every year, so I could get a decent photo of her under the tree:

After the photo, she resumed her regularly scheduled chewing of the branches. It was hard to get a good photo of her in action. Here’s the best I could do:

I finally got the rest of tree decorated without further incident.

I cleaned my home office yesterday afternoon after putting up the tree. It was a nightmare. Now it’s just a bad dream. As I cleaned, I noticed that I needed to flip the calendar to a new month. As I did, I saw a beautiful picture for the month of December of an old general store in some out of the way place, with two pickup trucks parked outside and snow falling steadily around the place. You can see inside one of the windows—where a Christmas tree shines proudly.

And then I got excited as I thought about the Christmas concert I’m going to tonight. Heidi Joy is performing her annual Holiday Joy concert and it’s always one of the highlights of the Christmas season for me. I’ll be posting more about it later in the week.

And one more thing happened. I remembered that the Christmas devotional book I wrote starts on December 1. I always imagine families sitting down around the dinner table with the book and working through one of the devotions, and then hopefully singing the corresponding Christmas carol I included with each day.

Yeah, it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.