Fruits And Nuts, and Kings

Contrary to the title, this post is not about my family. Well, it is sorta, but not in the way you
would normally think. When we were little, we went to church at Second Methodist Church in Okla. City.

Every year on the Sunday night before Christmas there was the Christmas celebration. There would be the reading of the story of Jesus' birth. Then came the entertainment. There would be singing of Christmas songs, both by the congregation and by the choir or the church quartet accompanied by Aunt Myrtle, who was not really our aunt, but was close enough to the family to be called our aunt by all of us kids.

Also helping out on the accompaniment was an older gentleman on bass fiddle, you know those 4 stringed instruments that were bigger than cellos, and his son on the xylophone or the marimba. At the end of the service came the part long awaited by all of us kids...

Santa's visit. Santa would come in and pass to all us kids a Christmas Bag. In it would be an apple, an orange, assorted nuts and ribbon candy in a brown paper bag. It was, at least to us kids, the highlight of the evening. I still can almost feel the anticipation to this day and see the sparkle in the eyes of the other children and, I'm sure, my own eyes.

I rode the train down to Ft. Worth last Saturday and spent the rest of Saturday helping my SIL run errands and wrap gifts, just trying to help out and earn my keep. Sunday afternoon I went with my brother to go shopping for his sweet bride. Ben wanted to run by the church to see if they needed any help to take down the stage that the children had performed on earlier. The pastor and his wife, whom I just love, were getting into their cars to head out, and I just had to jump out for my hugs from both the pastor and his wife.

We visited just a few moments before we got back into our respective cars and JoAnn took off running to her car, reached in, grabbed a bag and came running to my side. I rolled down my window and she handed it to me and said, " Merry Christmas!"

Imagine my delight when I opened that brown paper sack and saw an apple, an orange, some nuts and some ribbon candy.

I hope each and every one of you have a peaceful and joyous Christmas holiday. Embrace each other with love. Rejoice in being free to worship and praise the Lord for sending his son to show us the way, the truth and the light.

He is, after all, the Reason For The Season.

A special thanks to Rick at Organized Doodles for this art work.