My wife is busy baking, the tree is decorated, the cards have been sent.

All is normal, if that word can be used during this time of the year.

The Christmas season, as we in the twenty-first century celebrate it, is in full swing.  The mall is doing cracker- jack business, and decorations are everywhere.

If I hear Frosty the Snowman one more time I am sure I will snap off his carrot nose.  Presents have been purchased, but yet to be wrapped; extra batteries and a couple more extension cords were thrown in the shopping cart at Wal-Mart; for the fifty-third time we have been to the market to pick up one more item that we cannot do without for the Christmas eve buffet.  We got a card today from someone we had forgotten, so we quickly prepared another card for them, and

Oh darn, no more stamps, off to the post office to pick up stamps. 

We have had snow on the ground for almost a month now.  Everything is hustle and bustle as it usually is, but familiar, and in the familiarity comes the knowledge that all will fall in place and be well.  Except this year, it will be different. 

For sixty-five years at Christmas time, I had parents, but this year there will

be none to enjoy the Christmas feast with me and mine.  My wish, my prayer is that all who have gone before will assemble around a heavenly table laden with bounty earned from their time here on earth.  Their cares and burdens will have been lifted from them and replaced with joy in the reunion with those who preceded them.  Those gathered before me, I view with the certain knowledge that we are all here temporarily on loan from God