Stacey

Deck the halls and light the tree? This morning we (my aunt and I) decided to get into the spirit of things. I think most everyone I've talked to is in shock that it's that time of year again, so decorating with candy canes and lights is sort of a struggle. However, I am not a Grinch so I did my part in decorating. I put the lights on the tree. It's not my favorite job ever. Usually my family gets a live tree so putting the lights on becomes a painful situation (cuts infused with pine oil). This year (first fake tree of my life) it was painful in a different way-wire scraping my hands. I'm pretty sure I will not be going professional as I am a horrible judge of even lighting. See we had 5 strands of lights and it was a smaller tree. My aunt said she usually wraps the individual branches with lights because she like lots of lights-so I did. Well it turns out I used 2.5 strands on just the top :) So the bottom is really quite empty. I did plug in each strand to make sure they were working, however something happened and some lights aren't working-ugh! Also, I put the wrong end at the top so when I was at the bottom I had the wrong end to plug in so we had to run an extension cord up the back side of the tree. Oh the drama of lighting the tree! But by heck, we will be festive-boxes and boxes of decorations fill the living room.

Onto a more serious note, my attitude about Christmas it very different this year. I feel the need to focus souly on Christ and the glorious message of the gospel. My mom also feels this way. We are putting together missionary baskets to give to friends/family who need to hear the gospel. I feel like any gift I give should be not only filled with my love, but with the love of our Savior. I am reminded of the scripture, "we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ". More and more I feel such an urge to be actively spreading the gospel-and what a better time than Christmas!