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Merry Christmas, Reader!

One of my favorite parts of the Christmas season is reading all the seasonal greetings and holiday updates we receive from friends and family, near and far. We also re-read all our own family's past Christmas letters -- 37 years' worth now, so it usually takes us all month to do it. But it's a wonderful way to reminisce and to recount God's faithfulness to us through thick and thin.

Even if you don't send cards to anyone, I'd encourage you to jot down both the highlights and the hard times from 2024, to be reviewed again next Christmas. Keep it up, and you'll eventually have recorded a nice family history for posterity.

In case you haven't figured it out already just from being a subscriber, I'm a big fan of letter writing. And if you are too, or would like to be, this week's link list is especially for you.

Free resources for you this week:

• ​Blank Holiday Thank You Notes - use them to express thanks for all the gifts you receive
• ​How to Write a Thank You Note - step-by-step tutorial for kids (or adults) who never learned
• ​Composing a Family Christmas Letter - maybe send it for New Year's, Valentine's, or Easter
• ​50 Crafts to Make from Old Christmas Cards - clever ways to recycle seasonal cards
• ​Letter of Christ Coloring Page - our lives should be letters pointing others to Jesus

What I'm reading this week:

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My husband, I and my mother listened to the better part of Douglas Wilson's Decluttering Your Marriage together after a recent fender bender while we were waiting for a police officer to come fill out a crash report. It was time well spent. The book is short (only 44 pages long), but it spurred some lively conversations. Wilson proposes that problems in marriage can be tackled in the same way you might clean a messy garage: Start with whatever is on the surface and work your way down from there. Although I agree with the majority of what the author has here written, I would've worded a few of those concepts differently. But that was one of his points: Men and women are different -- by design -- and neither spouse should expect the another to express themselves in exactly the same way.

On the podcast this week:

Loving Life at Home: Episode 70 ​UNWRAPPING CANCER FOR CHRISTMAS​ This year, I got an early Christmas “gift” that was a far cry from what any woman would hope for. I got a breast cancer diagnosis. And I’ve been unwrapping it all week. So today, I’m sharing the thoughts that have encouraged me, in hopes that they might give others hope who find themselves dealing with similarly difficult situations over the holidays or during any other season of life. Listen Now

Progress on last week's goals:

By God's grace, I was able to mark all but one of my goals off last week's to-do list: I ✅ stocked our freezer with 8 ready-to-cook crockpot meals, ✅ had both a lymph node and right breast biopsy plus genetic testing done, ✅ drove to Mesquite to see my mom and sister and visit the Dallas Arboretum (although ❌ the Biblical Arts Museum was closed), ✅ recorded this week's podcast, ✅ celebrated Gabriel's birthday, and ✅ started working on the Christmas quilt I'm making with my daughter.

Personal goals for next week:

• do some painting with our kids
• book hotels/flights for next year's trips
• post two more Timberdoodle reviews​
• finish three quilt squares
• attend senior class meeting for youngest son
• pray about/set New Year's resolutions/goals
• finish reading Glad Tidings aloud to our kids
• post this year's Christmas letter online