CHRISTMAS WEEK

Ahh, the sermon is mostly done! The magnets are done and ready to be given out to folks who come to worship Christmas Eve - Behold the wonder of God's Love. It is also the unpublished title of my sermon and theme for this year.
  The staff gifts are bagged and ready to be distributed including LH's secretary.
  The gift bags for my niece and her fiancé are mostly done - just need the finishing flourish of tissue paper.
   The gifts for my sisters in law are still to be wrapped! Will happen in the next two nights. And bagged.
   A food list is in process - every couple days - something is added and will be picked up!
  The guest bedroom needs to be dusted and the beds made for my niece and her fiancé when they come right after Christmas.
   I have a parishioner in hospice and may not last the week - although yesterday when I stopped by after church, she was doing fairly well. I pray that she will not suffer too much, for God's mercy, and if possible, to hold off til after the new year. However, I know that it is all in God's hands and I pray that I will have time to enjoy my niece and her intended. We have so precious little time to ever see
one another. That is my Christmas wish - to have time with her and J together, for some fun, to talk over the wedding in May which I will be officiating. I pray that all the dogs will get along ok - our two and their two! Poor Jazz will have all his toys taken away and hidden so as my niece's boxer doesn't get a hold of them - he's a toy destroyer. Jazz has a few beloved toys that don't deserve to be utterly destroyed!
   I still have to email three Christmas letter to family and friend. All the cards and letters have been mailed.
   I had hoped to bake some European spiced cookies - just for the fun of it - after Christmas. Don't know if that will happen. Depends on how the hospice patient is doing.
   I still need to get the little evergreen wreath out of the garage, slide some red berry twigs into it
and put it on our kitchen table. In the next night or two, that will also happen!
  On Christmas Eve morning, I have bread dough to make for the Swiss bread to bake before I leave for a full night of church.
   Then just maybe, I'll be ready for Christmas and can enjoy Christmas Eve Day, Evening and Christmas.
  I need time myself, to Behold the wonder of God's love. May you behold the wonder of God's love
this Christmas with time to notice, to hold, to see the precious and tremendous love come to you and for you in the Christ child.