Tag Archives: Christmas Tree
The gift not yet opened, 2016
Hello everyone. Since I won’t be doing a Christmas tree this year, I thought I’d feature a photo of one from past years. If you have decorated a tree this year, feel free to send a photo to defeatdespair@verizon.net, and I’ll post it here. I hope you are finding some moments to enjoy this festive season. …
Softer and more beautiful
“Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. ” ― Norman Vincent Peale When you think of the holiday season, what words come to mind? I’m afraid that too often, we think of words such as busy, excited, rushed, tired, pressured. But no matter how many activities …
In the company of children
“Christmas Day in the company of children is one of the few occasions on which men become entirely alive.” ― Robert Lynd This quote sounds charming, but I couldn’t help but laugh a little to recall how exhausted Jeff and I used to be during the years when Santa would visit our sons. It always …
Bless you abundantly
“Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things …
The gift not yet opened, 2016
Hello everyone. Since I won’t be doing a Christmas tree this year, I thought I’d feature a photo of one from past years. If you have decorated a tree this year, feel free to send a photo to defeatdespair@verizon.net, and I’ll post it here. I hope you are finding some moments to enjoy this festive season. …
Softer and more beautiful
“Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. ” ― Norman Vincent Peale When you think of the holiday season, what words come to mind? I’m afraid that too often, we think of words such as busy, excited, rushed, tired, pressured. But no matter how many activities …
In the company of children
“Christmas Day in the company of children is one of the few occasions on which men become entirely alive.” ― Robert Lynd This quote sounds charming, but I couldn’t help but laugh a little to recall how exhausted Jeff and I used to be during the years when Santa would visit our sons. It always …
Bless you abundantly
“Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things …
The gift not yet opened
“The most splendid Christmas gift, the most marveled and magic, is the gift that has not yet been opened. Opaque behind wrapping or winking foil, it is a box full of possibilities…Often what precedes is better than what follows, even when, like Christmas Day, what follows is good.” — Gregg Easterbrook As with other happy …
Any simple thing
“Christmas in 1949 must compete as never before with the dazzling complexity of man, whose tangential desires and ingenuities have created a world that gives any simple thing the look of obsolescence—as though there were something inherently foolish in what is simple, or natural.” — E. B. White, in The New Yorker, December 1949 We are …
Sit quietly in a room
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” ― Blaise Pascal For decades, every year until this one, I have spent much time meticulously decorating our Christmas tree, a sort of yearly scrapbook with an ever-growing collection of ornaments, each representing a memory. I often question whether this …
Defeat Despair 