Thankful Sunday......

My thoughts keep racing, I wanted to share a few things that I am so thankful for in my life!!!! Christmas time is such a wonderful time of the year, I love the feeling Christmas brings, more love and gratitude for everything we have!! Christmas time brings so many fun memories, ones that are being made and ones that have past. Pondering on my childhood memories of christmas's past. My parents made christmas time a time of fun, service, love, singing carols, spending time as a family, remembering our savior, and a feeling of love and joy, that we should share thoughtout the years to come.. One of the first traditions that I love remembering is when we would go and pick out the Christmas tree, bring it home, put it up,and decorate the tree and the home.. I always looked forward to that time of year, to see the twinkleing lights, the ornaments, the star on top of the tree, the smell of fresh pine, I loved setting up the little manger scene with Christ in the center, where all could see.. I remember mom sitting at the piano playing christmas songs and all of us singing along, I can still hear the words as we sang. Another thing we would do, the night before christmas we would help mom make treats and put them on plates and take them to our neighbors, sometimes we would carol as we went.
Christmas Eve we would sit as a family and read the story from the scriptures of Christs birth, and talk about the true meaning of Christmas, then we would read the Littlest Angel, and of course we would get to open one gift before we went to bed! Next was one of the hardest things to do as a child, trying to go to sleep, with anticipation of Santa coming and what he would leave for us, not an easy thing to do.. The next morning we were up and going at the crack of dawn or earlier LOL. My parents made Christmas a wonderful time of year, and helped us to see of the importance of giving and remembering to let Christ be a part of everything... Thanks mom and dad for your love and all you have done for us over the years, and all you still do, what an Example you are to us, we love you!!! We have continued many of these traditions in our small family. This year we had a lovely Christmas, mom and dad, Ryan and Jen and their family came over and we had dinner and spent time visiting. The kids had a great time playing the wii and just visiting!! Thanks for spending time with us. I have to say that is the one of the best parts of Christmas is being able to be with the ones that we love! I miss spending time with all of my family, my Christmas wish would have to be that sometime soon we will live closer to each other and be able to be together during the holidays!!! I love you all so very much and Hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas.. May we all enjoy the year to come, and be thankful for all that we have in our lives!!