CHRISTMAS---SEVENTY-SEVEN AND COUNTING

Thursday, December 22, 2011

In so many ways, music expresses the feelings of the heart.

Growing up in Oklahoma, "I'm Dreaming of A White Christmas" was always on my mind during the Christmas season.

I can't remember if it ever snowed at Christmas time but it must not have or I think I would have remembered.

I liked "Blue Christmas" by Elvis Presley but it didn't express my feelings. I never had a blue Christmas.

I've celebrated Christmas in Oklahoma, California and now Arizona. They all have been great---all seventy-seven. Of course I don't remember the first few. In fact, the first time I remember Christmas or getting a Christmas present I must have been about five. We lived in the very small town of Fletcher, Oklahoma. My mother took me and my brothers to a Baptist Church where they had a huge Christmas tree. Years later I realized the "pearl" handled gun I received was not from Santa but from my mother.

Most of my Christmases have been spent with Charlotte. They have all been wonderful.

When you're seventy-seven you can't completely block out the thought, "How many more will there be?"

I'm comforted by the thought---when it's over here, it won't be over there.

At once the angel was joined by a huge

angelic choir singing God's praises...

            Luke 2:13

Wow! I don't have the words to communicate what that huge angelic choir must have looked and sounded like when Jesus was born.

If we think our Christmas celebrations are great, what must it be like in the angelic realm.

The song that expresses the feelings of my heart now is: "O happy day that fixed my choice On Thee my Savior and my God! Well may this glowing heart rejoice, And tell its raptures all abroad.....He taught me how to watch and pray, And live rejoicing every day."

O HAPPY DAY!