" CHRISTMAS SPIRIT "....and how to find it

"This Christmas"

This Christmas..mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend.
Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust.

Write a letter. Give a soft answer.
Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word and deed.
Keep a promise. Forgo a grudge.

Forgive an enemy. Apologize.
Try to understand. Examine your demands on others.
Think first of someone else. Be kind.
Be gentle. Laugh a little more.

Express your gratitude.
Welcome a stranger.
Gladden the heart of a child.

Take pleasure in the beauty and
the wonder of the earth.

Speak your love...and then,
Speak it again.

(Howard W. Hunter)

I am the Christmas Spirit.

I enter the home of poverty, causing pale-faced children to open their eyes wide in pleased wonder.

I cause the miser's clutched hand to relax and thus paint a bright spot on his soul.
I cause the aged to renew their youth and to laugh in the glad old way.

I keep romance alive in the heart of childhood and brighten sleep with dreams woven of magic.
I cause eager feet to climb dark stairways with filled baskets, leaving behind them hearts amazed at the goodness of the world.

I cause the prodigal to pause a moment on his wild, wasteful way and send to anxious love some little token that releases glad tears-tears which wash away the hard lines of sorrow.

I enter dark prison cells, reminding scarred manhood of what might have been, and pointing forward to good days yet to come.

I come softly into the still, white home of pain; and lips that are too weak to speak just tremble in silent, eloquent gratitude.

In a thousand ways I cause the weary world to look up into the face of God, and for a little moment forget the things that are small and wretched.
I am the Christmas Spirit.

Go gladden the lonely, the dreary; Go comfort the weeping, the weary;
Go scatter kind deeds on your way--Oh, make the world brighter today!

Forget yourself, and give from your heart;
" For when ye have done unto the least of these my brethren,
Ye have done it unto me. "

Getting into the real Spirit of Christmas....how about you? It is all about love and others....

Let my dolls be made of rags,
Fireman hats of paper bags.
Just write "Love" on the Christmas tags;
That's what I want for Christmas.
-Irving Caesar-

Sending out "all my love"...TO...all of you,
hoping you will find the Christmas spirit
and keep it in your heart now... and always!!!