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Winter Solstice
According to the calendar, today is the first day of winter. I’m not sure what season we’ve been in the past few weeks but it seems to me that it’s been an awful lot like winter already. We’ve had snow… and ice… and frigid single-digit temperatures. A little bit of sunshine here and there, but mostly gray skies… and many…
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December D’lights
The first weekend of December we participated in our small town’s Christmas festival, called “December D’lights.” The fun started on Friday evening in one of the shopping centers on the highway, with hay rides throughout the evening, s’mores over an open fire, games and activities in some of the stores, and I’m not sure what else. We didn’t manage to…
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Guest Post: His Star
My guest today is my dad, whose birthday happens to be today. He told me this morning when I called him that he figured this was his 55th birthday. Later in the conversation he allowed that he was “past 59.” Since I recently told you that I just turned 51, you can know that he’s a good bit “past 59.”…
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Christmas Reading
As my daughter kindly puts it, I’m really not much of a Christmas person. That’s her kind way of saying I’m something of a Scrooge. I’m really not, but I don’t enjoy celebrating Christmas for 2 or 3 months. I don’t fully embrace the Christmas season until Thanksgiving is over and even then I like to keep things very simple.…
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December Blessings
During the hustle and bustle of the holiday season it seems especially important to continue counting 1000 Gifts. So here’s the next installment of blessings on my Joy Dare series. December 1. 3 Gifts White Snow Popcorn Cotton December 2. 3 Gifts Bright Christmas lights Sunshine Hope December 3. 3 Gifts Shining Stars Tinsel Candlelight December 4. A Gift Circling,…
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December Days
When I say “Happy Holidays” I’m not trying to be unChristian. I’m not taking Christ out of Christmas. I’m actually thinking of the span of weeks that encompass the holiday season. I celebrate three holidays during this season: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. During this time of year I might say “Happy Thanksgiving!” (though, granted, that holiday is past) or “Merry…
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Guest Post: The Bell Ringer
When my parents were here last week for Thanksgiving I asked my dad if he would be willing for me to share an article he wrote several years ago as a guest post on my blog during December. I had a certain one in mind that he had written for a family newsletter I published for a number of years.…
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A Pre-Christmas Memory
I’m thinkin’ it must have been about 40 Christmases ago… (Which is completely impossible, of course, because there’s no way 1974 was actually 40 years ago. My math must be off somewhere.) Anyway, somewhere along in through there… My mother, an accomplished and professional seamstress, sewed many of our Christmas gifts when we were growing up. Her project that year…
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Christmas Week Fragments
Let’s see… it’s Friday… so that means I can post a bunch of random disconnected twaddle and call it a blog post, because that’s what Friday Fragments is all about, right? So… here we go… You’ll be happy to know that Bernadine and Beauregard Bearsaltandpepper now have company in the Downstairs Northwoods Bathroom. The new inhabitants aren’t directly descended from…
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Christmas in the Country
Usually we stay home for Christmas and have a quiet celebration with “just the four of us.” This year we decided that our family gift would be a trip to Arkansas to spend Christmas with my parents. We left on the evening of Christmas Eve. As we traveled on Christmas Day we “enjoyed” scenery similar to this: Most of the…
