A last morning to anticipate. This boy who is still my baby, still my sidekick. I’m thankful for so much today.

Enjoy your preparations, friends. The clothes ironing and cookie plating and dinner making. The last gift wrapping and tree rearranging.

Today we’ll get ready for the last Christmas party of our year — just us, after church tonight, with candles and snacks and reading the Christmas story. The best party of all. Let the celebrations begin. Or continue — because isn’t that the whole point of this? Jesus came to dwell among us, abiding in our hearts, walking with us in every exhilarating, dreary, rejoicing, heartbroken moment. He crowns every moment with His presence. He changes us from the brokenness we were born as into the whole person He envisioned from the beginning. The celebration unfolds, day by day, and we anticipate Him coming again — when we will see “yonder break a new and glorious morn.”

Merry Christmas.