The Angels Sang "Gloria"

   There are many things I love about the Christmas season & we have lots of traditional activities as well as some new ones each year.  Sometimes there are so many that I find myself "dreading" having to attend all of them.  Yet, I'm always blessed by each one.
  We've attended three different Christmas concerts over the last 2 weeks, & each time I came away with my focus back on the whole Reason for this season.
  One Christmas time dinner that has become part of our tradition over the last 8-9 years is with a group of guys (& their wives) with whom Steve has played Sat. golf.  Now that some of them are retired, they no longer play together regularly (just as I've stayed away from Sat. shopping because I don't have to do it then, Steve has done that with the golf courses...)  But we still have our Christmas dinner & ornament exchange.

(I have this one on my tree, so I bought another just like it to give as my ornament this year).

The host couple sets the menu, fixes the meat, provides drinks (sparkling grape juice, tea, coffee, etc.) & assigns the other parts of the meal to the rest.  We rotate having it in our homes each year.

(This is the one I received this year!)

   Last year one of the wives was battling cancer, & because of the treatment she couldn't go anywhere.  This year, with her cancer in remission, we had the dinner at her house!  Saturday night we sat around (5 couples, 60+ in age) singing Christmas songs & carols, laughing, enjoying the guitar accompaniment of her husband (who actually is very good), & all so thankful that God in His goodness has given her an extension of earthly life. We laughed about how we could sing at the top of our lungs and there were no "young people" around to make fun of us.  Not ALL the fun is reserved for the more youthful!

So this is one of the activities that brings me a new ornament each year like this one joy!

By the way, her name is "Gloria"... just like the angels sang.