Welcome to our last collection of the year. It’s coming at the beginning of the month instead of the end. I hope these links, pictures, and quotes inspire your words and actions this Christmas season.

For the Christ Child who comes is the master of all, no palace to great, no cottage too small.

Phillips Brooks

Tiny gifts listed here, for the ones on your list who love anything miniature. There’s also the mini bookshelf linked in the September Collection.

Christmas is a time when you get homesick— even when you’re home.

Carol Nelson

Don’t know what to write in the Christmas card? Try one of these 109 Fun and Festive Ways to Wish Everyone a Merry Christmas. If nothing on that list suits, try 130 Merry Christmas Wishes to Add to Your Holiday Cards. Here’s another list of 150 Short Christmas Card Messages and Heartfelt Greetings with an index for greetings suitable for romance, teachers, pets or bosses. Maybe while reading others’ words, your own words will come to you. The mailing deadline for USPS Ground Advantage and First-Class Mail is December 17. Your packages need to be on the way by then to get to your loved ones before Christmas.

We are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child at Christmas.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Many of the Christmas carols we sing are old English, or translated from German or French. But the Little Drummer Boy is an American carol. It was written by Katherine Davis one day when the words wouldn’t leave her as she tried to take a nap. It was not an immediate hit in America and was first recorded by the Trapp Family singers from Austria. To me the song means to do your best with what you have – a good goal at Christmas time when my expectations can easily exceed my energy or budget.

Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.

Washington Irving

Would you believe there’s a wikipedia page donated to Green Bean Casserole? I find this funny and amazing! I made Green Bean Casserole for Thanksgiving and got curious about its origins. Dorcas Reilly created this recipe in 1955 and since then 20 million families across the United States serve it on their holiday table. It is iconic!

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I also went down a rabbit trail of of the abbreviations BC/AD. Why is the ancient one in English and the current one in latin? It appears most countries count time as ‘before Christ’ and ‘after Christ.’ Isn’t that a thing of wonder? And even though they rename it to avoid the Christ part, (BCE/BC) they still are basing their time on the event of Christ’s birth.

BC/AD

This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future's 
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing 
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces. 

And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazardly by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.
--U. A. Fanthorpe

It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas when it’s mighty Founder was a child Himself.

Charles Dickens

Something I have been pondering but do not have many conclusions about: How to be childlike when you are grown-up, especially at Christmas. Children trust those who care for them. They laugh a lot. They ask questions. They anticipate. They believe in miracles. Is that how Christmas feels to me? Should it? What do you think?

So, if you see this as the worst of times or the best of times… keep your eyes open to the possibility of miracles!

–Liz