Emily Freeman is hosting ‘What We Learned in December’.

Here’s what I learned.

~ Cyclamen look great as Christmas decorations planted in the pots on my front porch.   Next year I’m using more white ones than red so that after Christmas I can pull out the red ones and add a few primrose in yellow and violet.   A little reminder that Spring will come again.

~ My favorite Christmas card was a tri-fold 5 X 7 card that featured photos and snippets of update about family members.  This hybrid card combines the best features of a Christmas letter and the traditional Family photo card.  The photos were taken all throughout the year.  I’m making an album in my iPhoto especially for Christmas card photos taken over the next year.

~ You can purchase a premium theme for tumblr that really makes the visual experience rich. Now if I could just find the piece of code that would turn off the music player my granddaughter added I’d be thrilled. Don’t know what tumblr is?  Here’s a link to mine.
http://input-image.tumblr.com

~ Want to write without hitting publish? A mentor urged me to start writing more, a lot more every day. He pointed the way to a site called 750 Words. The juices just start to flow when you know that no one else will be reading it. Begin a novel, a diary, poetry, or a short story. Tell yourself a story from your childhood or tell your husband what you’d like in bed. It doesn’t matter. No one but you will see it. I was amazed at how quickly 750 words covered the page. You can publicly commit to a challenge and then your name ends up every day on The Wall of Awesome.
http://750words.com

~ Want to write and hit publish? Find a whole new audience to share your content at Medium. It is also a wonderful resource for excellent articles. Searchable by categories. You can comment specifically on a sentence or paragraph from an article.  I love this site.
https://medium.com

~ Crowded Malls, Office Parties, and Amazon failures are not what Christmas is all about.  Christmas is still the beautiful gift of Immanuel, God with us.  It represents the day, though certainly not in December, that God sent His Son to be born as a babe in Bethlehem and ultimately offer Himself as a sacrifice for our sins.  It gets wrapped in family and coated with a good deal of nostalgia, but at its core it is about redemption.  An incredible love that has burned since Eden calls out to each of us in the person of Jesus Christ.  Christmas is an annual reminder that God is intent on making us family, His family.

~ In November’s list of what I learned I shared a photo of my grandson’s new puppy, Bella.  I am so sad to tell you that Bella drowned in the swimming pool while our kids were at a Christmas Eve service.  I learned that even Golden Labs aren’t safe around pools while they are puppies.  I hope the old movie title is true and All Dogs Go to Heaven.

` It’s time for the tree to go and Christmas decorations to return to storage for another year, but Christmas can and should happen all through the year.  I found this quote from Dale Evans.  She was married to the movie and television cowboy-star Roy Rogers.

Christmas, my child, is love in action.  Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas.
Dale Evans

~ My tan is completely gone by December. We are headed for 7 weeks of ministry in Ghana, West Africa and I have no base tan left. I am taking several tubes of sunscreen because equatorial sun is serious sun.

~ I will work longer at an unpleasant task if someone on Audible is reading me a book. Preferably Simon Prebble.
http://www.audible.com/search/ref=a_hp_tseft?advsearchKeywords=Mrs.+Queen+Takes+the+Train&filterby=field-keywords&x=-1158&y=-106

~ The Nature series, Animal Odd Couples is amazing, heartwarming, and life affirming.
http://youtu.be/xg5YcEBUGz4

~ I am thankful that Wendy Wax, Mary Kay Andrews, and John Grisham spend their time writing books. I also love taking 300 books to Africa all on an iPad. Posthumous thank you to Steve Jobs for the products that have changed the way we read, create, & communicate, and for a great place for my son to work, and for the Friends & Family discount:)

~ The last thing I learned in December is that my husband is much better at buying a Christmas gift for me than I am at buying one for him.  I’m OK with that.