Christmastime is here


I got one of my teenage cousins, Clint, or Clinta claus, to come over and help us hang up our Christmas lights this weekend. He’s the most patient teenager I’ve ever seen. He didn’t even roll his eyes when I tried to explain our crazy Christmas light decorating plan, or even when we rearranged furniture to make room for a tree. He’s such a sweet kid! Thank you Clint! It’s quite a bunch of work to get those lights hung up, but it sure is worth it. Each year I forget how much we love looking at the beautiful Christmas lights until we see them up. Turning on the Christmas lights is the one chore A’Dell never forgets!
I guess we get a lot of our love for Christmas passed down from Grandma and Grandpa DuBose who did all kinds of special things at Christmastime. Every year my Grandpa would set up his immaculate “Christmas Garden” with a village of colorful houses, and mountains with electric trains running through them. And of course then there was Grandma’s immaculate Christmas dinners–with every kind of favorite dish and appetizers perfectly set out in all her beautiful dishes for large family gatherings. They truly appreciated the Christmas spirit and made Christmas extra special for everyone around them. We still have a lot of those Christmas houses and while I don’t yet have the patience or time to set up electric trains running through mountains–I definitely would love to do that for my grandchildren someday.
My grandparents also enjoyed driving around town to see the colorful lights on a cold December night, and did a Christmas light competition in Devine many years, which we’ve brought back to life in the past few years in memory of Grandpa Pat and Grandma Kitty DuBose. We’ve turned it into a fundraiser for local foster children and been able to raise thousands and thousands of dollars in the past couple years to help make their Christmas special, thanks to the wonderful, giving community we live in.
If you haven’t entered the Christmas Light Challenge for HANK’s kids, please do so. The deadline to enter is this coming Wednesday, December 12. Every entry donation goes to local foster kids. There’s plenty of info in this week’s paper on page 1 and 7.
In the Christmas spirit, our preacher man also gave us a cool little project recently. He told us to consciously be vigilant and watch out for someone who may be in need a little kindness, and do something to “give them a little hope.” We were given a little keychain item that we are instructed to pass onto the next friend or family member after we complete the act of kindness, and keep the good deeds going. It’s a simple idea, yet can have such a big impact.
On that note, he also challenged everyone to keep track of how much we spend on Christmas gifts, and donate an equal amount to a worthy cause of our choice. That’s much more difficult, but I think it’s really smart, so we’re gonna try it!