God Bless Us Everyone!

 

Apparently, there is a limit to the amount of service our kids are willing to do, and they are a little smarter than I give them credit. I tried to pawn this off on them through guilt, but they know that Santa has already come and gone so what, they ask, is the point? We’ve got 363 days to make it up they say. So the task is left to me, with a little help from Chuck Dickens.

“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come around as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creature bound on other journeys.”

Ed and Kriss had a family tradition in California. They looked for need in their fellow passengers and found it in a single mom in their ward. Every year, the Gates family ventured out and purchased a tree for their own family and this single mom. Her tree was always as good or better than the tree they bought for their own family. It was always given anonymously but with Christ’s love.

We decided to mimic this by doing a secret Santa for a young boy named Jaxon. We hope we were able to brighten his Christmas just a little bit.

 “Don’t be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow”

We learned a little about where this tree giving tradition came from when we decided to serve family by visiting Uncle Ernie. We thought that Ed would like us to do this. We had a tough battle with inertia as Mitzi and the kids were pretty content snuggled in front of the TV. But we won the battle and drove to see Ernie and Linda and brought them some bread. With tears in his eyes, Ernie explained how every year, on Christmas Eve, someone left a tree on their front porch. He was so grateful for that. It was a great visit and I am glad we had this reminder to leverage our butts off our couch.

“Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn’t have cleared away, or couldn’t have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter’s night.”

At any church activity, Mitzi always encourages us to stick around after and help clean up. This is what her parents did. There was never a question of whether to leave early or not. We haven’t had the opportunity to clean up after activities due to covid so, instead, we volunteered to clean the church as a family. We swept and watered, we cleared away and made the church snug and warm.

“And how did little Tim behave?” asked Mrs Cratchit. “As good as gold,” said Bob, “and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas day, who made the lame beggars walk and blind men see.”

We decided that Kriss and Ed would love to serve little Jack so we loaded up the family for the Partridge move. Our kids, never complaining, unloaded the moving van in a very efficient manner and then proceeded to help organize and clean the Partridge’s new home.

Kriss and Ed are a great example to our family. We loved serving in their name this year.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and in 2021, “God Bless us, Everyone!”