I just want to wish you all a very wonderful Christmas. Hopefully you will get to be with someone who you love and who loves you. Some of you are deep in snow right now, while others are still applying suntan lotion. My friends down under in New Zealand (where I grew up) and Australia are enjoying summer weather. Many are planning what to bring to their beach picnics, as is often the tradition. Some small differences provide me with fond memories, such as saying "Happy Christmas", not "Merry Christmas", and "crackers" or bonbons as we call them are often included around Christmas dinner tables (those paper gifts that you pull each end of to reveal a small surprise inside). I still try to find those here for fancy table settings. They are a day ahead and so it is already Christmas Day there while I type this.
So wherever you are, remember why we celebrate and what we should celebrate - recalling God's gift of amazing love to us, that with his birth as a baby at Christmas, He came down from His level to ours to become one of us so we could know He can relate to our lives today and understand what we go through. It is about love to each other, putting aside differences and reaching for peace over bitterness and strife, appreciating what we have in our lives and in each other. Christmas is about love, family, togetherness and hope.
I appreciate each of you in my life and for your support of my business, I say a big THANK YOU. Now as if I haven't had enough already, I must take a bite out of a Santa cookie and prep for tomorrow's fun and festivities.
