I love Christmas decorations and I love the family time spent putting everything up. We put?some Christmas music on?and do our decorating as a family. My husband puts the tree together and gets it all fluffed up. Together he and I put on the lights and our boys do all of the ornaments. I don’t butt in or tell them where they go, I just let them put them where they think is best. This has made for an interesting tree sometimes, but that’s okay with me. I do all of the little knick knacks, fireplace, etc. My husband is kind enough to take care of the lights and garlands on the stairs. It’s really nice to do this together and make these memories every year.

Our tradition has always been to start the decorations the weekend after Thanksgiving. What normally happens is we kind of start on Saturday, but not really. Then we end up doing everything on Sunday and I’m adjusting and making sure everything is just so all day on Monday. I told my husband this year that when next Christmas rolls around I wanted to start on Friday (we’re not Black Friday shoppers so this is no problem), work on the rest? Saturday and be able to relax and enjoy them on Sunday. We’ll see if this actually happens, but it is my wish.

The?REAL wish would be to put them up a week or two before Thanksgiving, but I don’t think my hubby would go for that. We do a lot of decorations and it just seems like so much work for only a few weeks. I’d like to get some more time out of?our hard work. We’ll see what happens next year. I’ve got a whole year to plead my case.

I realized this year that I don’t have any keepsake photos of our house at Christmas time. We’re kind of trying to sell?the house and I realized that I would be very sad to move away and not have any pictures?of our decorations for this time of year.?So I decided to take a few and to share them with all of you.

My favorite thing about our house is the fireplace and mantel, especially at Christmas. Each year I look forward to the garland with the lights and hanging up all of our stockings. I love being in the living room with just the Christmas lights on. It just makes me happy. If I had to pick a favorite Christmas decoration it would be lights. The more? the better. I don’t think anyone can have too many lights up at Christmas. The movie “Deck The Halls” where Danny DeVito is trying to put up enough lights so they can be seen from space. Yep, that’s my kind of house!!

Being thankful isn’t something that I reserve just for Thanksgiving Day. I also don’t wait until February 14 to show my husband love and adoration. I think how Jesus died on the Cross and rose again for the penalty of my sins everyday, not just during the Easter season. Same with Christmas; December 25th is a magical day, but more magical than that is showing your love and devotion for Jesus Christ?all year long. Veterans who have willingly served to protect my freedom deserve a thank you more than just one day in November. And so on and so on. My point here is this,?have a thankful heart past today. It’s very easy during times that seem grim to play the victim and feel sorry for yourself. It is during those times when counting your blessings can be the hardest, but it is also when it’s the most important. Here’s a few things that at the time I didn’t think I would be thankful for, but now I am.

• Almost divorcing my husband. Because now our love is stronger than I ever thought it could be and I appreciate? him more than I ever did before. I now know that I don’t ever want to?be without him. Marriage isn’t always easy, but loving Chase comes as easy as breathing for me. If I hadn’t seen what life was like without him, I may not feel the need to hold onto what we have so tightly.
• Having a miscarriage. Going through that kind of pain changed me and took me to a dark place that I was afraid I wouldn’t get out of.?Less than 3?months after that loss I found out I was having my youngest, Trevor. He would not be here if I hadn’t suffered that miscarriage.
• Being in an abusive relationship as a teenager. It does something to a young?woman to be physically, emotionally and mentally abused by someone they think?cares for?them. There were?several negatives that came from that situation that had to be overcome, but there were positives, too. I walked away from?it a much stronger and smarter person.
• Losing friends along the way?that I really thought I would have forever. These friends had over stayed their welcome, but I just couldn’t picture my life without them. They all had parts of me that I wasn’t sure that I was ready to say goodbye to. Now my?load is lighter because I left those parts with those friends and I can continue to grow into a better person.
• Moving back to my hometown where I grew up. When you have to regularly overcome your past to get to your future it can only be described as character building. By now I think I’ve?built up?quite a bit of character. This little town has given us many blessings though and I feel confident that when the time is right we’ll move on. Maybe next year I’ll be thankful for adventures that a new town brings.

I hope that maybe I’ve given you a little food for thought on this day where we think so much about food. I don’t mean to downplay holidays, but let’s remember we can observe what they stand for all year long. Try to have a thankful heart each and every day.

“The unthankful heart…discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessing.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher

Tomorrow, November 11, is Veterans Day. Please make sure that you thank a Vet today and always be in prayer for the needs and blessings in their lives. Most have lived through more than we could probably imagine and had to do and see things that we could not comprehend. They are timeless heroes who sacrifice to preserve our freedom as well as the freedom of others. Below is an article that I came across and found appropriate for Veterans Day. I’m not sure who the author is and there are several versions. This is the one I chose to?use.

What is a vet?

A vet is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel.

A vet is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th Parallel.

A vet is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.

A vet is the POW who went away one person and came back another – or didn’t come back at all.

A vet is the drill instructor who has never seen combat – but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account punks and gang members into marines, airmen, sailors, soldiers and coast guardsmen, and teaching them to watch each other’s backs.

A vet is the parade-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

A vet is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

A vet is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean’s sunless deep.

A vet is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket – palsied now and aggravatingly slow – who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

A vet is an ordinary and yet extraordinary human being, a person who offered some of his life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

A vet is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more that the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say, “Thank You.” That’s all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.

Two little words that mean a lot, “THANK YOU”.

Joseph Ambrose, an 86-year-old World War I veteran, attends the dedication day parade for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1982, holding the flag that covered the casket of his son, who had been killed in the Korean War.