Happy New Year!

It is 4 days into the new year...how many resolutions have been broken already? I don't believe in resolutions. Mainly because I don't stick to them, and I don't like them because they contribute to a sense of failure when you don't live up to them. Most of us are too hard on ourselves already, and adding pressure to keep some promise made half-heartily after too much bubbly isn't helpful either!

On a serious note I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I was walking through a Target store on the journey home Sunday and they had already started putting up Valentine's Day decorations on some of the end caps! I guess consumerism doesn't slow down for anything. I was doing my best to reflect on Christmas this year and I'm amazed at how fast it is all over and we're back into the "normal" groove of life. It is almost as if Christmas is something to be endured, when in fact Christmas should be life changing shouldn't it. We are celebrating the birth of our savior after all. Disclaimer alert: I'm not railing against Santa Clause and gift giving, just some thoughts about keeping the spirit of Christmas alive all year round.

This year our son Isaac really started to get into this whole Santa Claus thing. In fact he was mad at Santa because he didn't bring him the DSi that he wanted. I know, I know we're terrible parents for not giving him everything he wants. As Isaac was more and more into Santa I found myself wanting more and more to make sure he knew why Christmas even existed. We sang happy birthday to Jesus and had some cupcakes, which is a cute way to remind us of the event. But, more importantly we made sure to let him know, as much as a four year old can understand, how lucky he, we, all of us, are to be able to share gifts and family. By doing my best to stress this to Isaac I was reminded myself how lucky we are. As we were buying the gifts for the Christmas family the church adopted I was completely humbled and thankful for the blessings that abound.

My thought is that as the "normalcy" of life plods along we'll all do a better job of remembering the gifts and blessings that we have. My prayer is that we will remember we are all God's children, loved by God, and called by God to share that good news. If we can do that then the limits of what the Spirit will do in our lives is endless.