25 Days

25 Days.

Twenty-Five days to put up CHRISTmas lights,

decorate,

display The Nativites,

put up the CHRISTmas tree,

bake cookies,

clean and prepare,

sing carols,

read CHRISTmas stories,
visit friends,

visit family,

attend CHRISTmas parties,

wrap presents,

make presents,

listen to CHRISTmas music,

shop last minute gifts,

send out CHRISTmas cards

(that is if you do, I always end up with signed cards that don't make it out to the post office, I gave up),

plan CHRISTmas dinner,

18 get rid of old toys of children,

choose a family to act out the 12 Days of CHRISTmas,

picture with Santa,

visit the AZ temple grounds and listen to carolers and see the lights,

drive around and look at lights,

drink hot cocoa,

celebrate CHRISTmas Eve with family and open gifts, and

on the 25th day, Read the scriptures of Christ's birth.

I like to try to read CHRISTmas stories from a collection of CHRISTmas books I have to my children. I just added another book to my collection.

Edited by Susan Arrington Madsen, Pioneer CHRISTmas excerpts from personal journals is a must have. I will try to include passages from this book this month. With the recession here in Arizona and in many parts of United States, and Worldwide, these passages from the Pioneers who trekked across the plains of United States during cold holiday winters make you appreciate what we have and remind us of the true meaning of CHRISTmas. I would perfer

fresh homemade bread or a sweets over store bought nonsense, or family photos from friends and family. May we all have a stress free holiday season.

Hope you enjoy the passages or thoughts I will include this month.

All of us children hung up out stockings CHRISTmas eve.

We jumped up early in the morning to see what Santa had brought,

but there was not a thing in them.

Mother wept bitterly.

She went to her box and got a little apple and cut it in little tiny pieces

and that was our CHRISTmas.

But, I have never forgotten

how I loved her dear hands as she was cutting that apple.

Hannah Daphne Smith Dalton

Autobiography, LDS Church Archives

25 December 1862