"The true sprit of Christmas is love." -- Linda Willis

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John 15:9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.

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Greensleeves - What Child Is This
The Gothard Sisters
This is a beautiful instrumental version of Greensleeves, along with a joyous performance video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0tn-VdgU_k

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I want my family to understand the joy serving others brings both to the giver and the recipient at Christmas time.  Some things are really big and obvious like donating to Toys For Tots, or Christmas caroling at Nursing Homes.  They need to experience the joy which comes from the little things they do.  I was at the store today and there was a little old lady (who wasn’t me) heading for the door carrying a heavy bag of groceries.  One young man, who appeared to be a teenager, walked up to her and asked to carry her bag.  The other young joined him and together they walked her to her car steadying her against the wind.  Then they looked around the parking lot, and gathered up the shopping carts and put them in the stall.  What a thoughtful thing to do.  I went about my shopping and saw them back in the store getting things down from the shelves for short people; lifting items up and into the carts from the bottom shelves for people with bad knees.  With each act of service they did, their smiles grew bigger.  What fine young men.  As far as I could tell, they did it just because.  I’m a people watcher.  It fills my heart with joy to see good deeds done.  Encourage your children to look for things which will only take a few seconds to do, but will lift the hearts of those around them.  Today’s story is one of service~~ Marilee

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Brownies In A Jar

This mix is the first step to a batch of the best fudge brownies you've ever sampled. No chocolate lover will be able to resist them.
Source: Better Homes and Gardens


1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1-1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate pieces
1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup white baking pieces

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1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled
2 slightly beaten eggs

1. Layer in a 1-quart glass jar or canister the following ingredients: cocoa powder, sugar, chocolate pieces, flour, baking powder, salt, walnuts, and white baking pieces. Tap jar gently on the counter to settle each layer before adding the next. Cover jar and store at room temperature up to one month. Or, attach baking directions and give as a gift.
2. Baking directions: Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour an 8x8x2-inch baking pan. Combine butter and eggs in a large bowl. Stir in jar contents. Spread into prepared pan. Bake for 35 minutes or until edges begin to pull away from pan. Cool in pan on a wire rack. Cut into bars. Makes 16.

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A WEST SIDE CHRISTMAS STORY

~by Pat Sullivan

My husband, Chuck, and my sister, Lee, are partners in a heating company in Chicago.  Lee is the buyer, hirer, firer, phone answerer, typist, bookkeeper, and office girl.  She will bring hot soup and sandwiches to a crew in an icy basement at three o'clock in the morning, but she is Hard-Hearted Hannah when it comes to spending company money.
When she says "No" to an expense account item, or something she thinks is a luxury, her eyes shoot fire ... and Chuck, who is usually a very verbal man, starts to tiptoe around her desk.
One day about a week before Christmas, all the phones in the office seemed to start ringing at once.  There were more broken boilers, burned-out fire-pots, and stuck stack switches than there had ever been before, and the men were working around the clock.  I went into the office to help out on the phones, and it was all I could do just to write down the names and addresses of the people without heat.  Worst of all, it seemed that everyone who called either had a new baby, an old grandmother, or had just gotten out of the hospital themselves.
One woman called in tears.  She lived in a section of Chicago where rioting, looting, and burning had taken place a few months earlier.  She had been phoning for several hours, one heating company after another, trying in vain to get a serviceman to work in a black neighborhood.  I took the order and promised that a man would be there within the hour.  Then she asked if she could pay a little money each week for the service call, and I looked at Lee and repeated the question.  She nodded, "Okay," and when I told the customer, Mrs. Jenkins, not to worry, she said, "God bless you, miss," and hung up.
Lee turned the call over to Chuck, as all the other men were out.  "Bump that other call I gave you; they only have a noisy burner.  This one is a no-heat. Better get right on it."  Chuck left and was gone for several hours.
When he came back, he told Lee, "Forget the billing on that one."
She looked at him, "Since when are we in the charity business?"
Then Chuck told us that Mrs. Jenkins was a widow with seven little children.  Her house was clean and bare with very few furnishings.  The children were thin and hungry-eyed, wearing worn and much patched clothes.  After Chuck had gotten the heat going, one of the smaller boys had shyly come over to watch him pick up his tools, and Chuck patted him on the head and asked, "What did you tell Santa Claus you wanted for Christmas?"
The child looked him right in the eye and answered, "Ain't no more Santa Claus.  Mama say he die, no use to ask him for any toys, cause he is dead, and we ain't gonna get nothing anyways.
Lee never said a word, but brusquely handed Chuck another call and told him to get going.  We worked, all three of us, most of the night.  The next morning Lee called in to tell us that she hadn't heard the alarm and would be in late.  Chuck seemed strangely happy to hear this and asked one of the men to watch the phones for a while, then hustled me into my coat.  "Can't spend a dime with that woman looking over my shoulder," he grumbled.
When we pulled up in front of a large toy store, I knew what he was up to.  He hummed and whistled while he loaded the shopping cart with dolls, games, trucks, and space ships.  Then we headed to the candy store for filled stockings, striped red-and-white peppermint canes, and sugar figures of pigs, soldiers, and ballerinas.  We drove through thick snowflakes, bumper to bumper, all the way to the West Side, unloaded the piles of presents and rang Mrs. Jenkins' doorbell.
In we trotted, behind the whooping children, to find a red-cheeked Lee pinning a Christmas Star of Bethlehem on the top of a fragrant pine tree.
Nearby was Mrs. Jenkins, smiling through her tears, as she carefully unpacked a Nativity scene and reverently placed the figures of the Holy Family in the middle of her dining-room table.
"Well, don't just stand there ... get busy!"  said Lee, handing a box of tinsel to my open-mouthed husband.  "What took you so long?"