This one's for the children (that's for my wife and sisters)...

I tell you what, as I get older, every year around this time I get more and more sentimental.  I used to be more "Jingle Bells" and "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree".  Now I'm more "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas", "Celebrate Me Home", and "Christmas Through Your Eyes" (one of my favorites).  Yeah, so I'm a softy.  So what? :-)

I'm definitely less concerned about what I get anymore than I am what I can give to other people.  This year, in fact, I couldn't care less if I got one thing.  We are, however, making gifts for everyone, and I'm really enjoying that more than going around trying to find something in the stores - plus it's just that much more personal!

Another thing we did again this year, that we've done for the past several years, is to take part in the "Angel Tree" project through our church, which is a program that fellowships to prisoners through collecting gifts for their children.  They set up a tree with pieces of paper attached to it.  On the paper is the name of a child, their age, and what their parent would like to buy for them - usually not too much money, although they don't really specify too much.

As would be expected, the younger kids cards get picked pretty quickly.  Jenny and I like to focus on the older kids (8+) - the ones who seem to always be "left behind" and forgotten all to often in real life.  We saw another of these trees at a different church this evening when we went to a Christmas program, and 95% of the cards left on the tree were aged 10+.  It just breaks my heart to think of a child potentially going without a gift on Christmas!  If I could afford it I would grab every single card off of every tree I came across and buy as many gifts as I could.  These kids are many times being forced to grow up entirely too quickly as it is in these instances - no need to take away more of their childhood!

I would encourage all of you to look for these trees.  They're not only in churches - I believe the program is sponsored by the Salvation Army, so I'm sure you can help out online even.  I know times are tough (believe me, we know!) but it doesn't really take that much money - and it's so worth it!

I did a red stroke today - the color of the cards on the tree we saw this evening.  Here's to hoping that they're all gone soon, replaced by the smile of a child who may just have a better Christmas than they otherwise would have.  Merry Christmas, everyone!