sandiec34-justthinking

I'm new at this, so keep that in mind, if you read this. Tuesday, December 23. My sister's birthday. Coming as close to Christmas as it did, Betty didn't usually get much attention for her birthday and as she grew older, she didn't mind that much. I used to tease her about her birthday, a lot. That said, this was still her favorite time of the year. She loved Christmas!! Once her favorite places had their Christmas lights up, it was absolutely necessary for us to go look at the lights at least one evening. Maybe one of us would bring along a grandchild, maybe not, but WE went! I miss her often, but more at Christmas then any other time.



When my youngest was nine, I knew she'd already figured out the Santa Clause thing, so I just dropped all efforts of pretense about him. Betty was so upset with me. I just thought it more important that my daughter understand the real meaning of Christmas.



I remember going to church as a child and seeing Santa there handing out presents, then when I got older, I found out that Santa was not real, even though I'd seen him at church. It made it hard for me to accept that Jesus was real. After all, even going to church every Sunday, I never saw a physical Jesus there. I was pretty much an adult before I finally learned that my doubts had to be replaced with faith, and it was then that Jesus finally became real in my heart.



Now, I'm seeing Christmas through the sparkling, brown eyes of my 3 year old granddaughter, Kinsley. She told me just last week that she was sooo excited about Christmas, and she is. I wish Betty could be here to enjoy Kinsley's excitement. They would be perfectly matched.