It's Christmastime, Charlie Brown.

This time of year, I forget about the simple pleasures of life.  Honestly.  There's too much to do.  Who has time to sit by the fire with a mug of hot cocoa and just be still?  (Not that I have a fireplace, or can drink hot cocoa, but I'm sure you get the idea.)  And if we do have, or make, the time to relax, doesn't it usually involve some kind of screen: phone, tablet, computer, TV, theater? It isn't like we're really taking in our surroundings, breathing in the atmosphere of the birth of the Savior and feeling the ho ho ho.

If I'm wrong, and you are the type of person who inhales Currier and Ives and exhales twinkle lights, I beg your pardon.

I'd love to be the kind of person who can gaze through the Winter darkness and focus on nothing more than the starlight, but I have to admit, after about two minutes of that, I'm bored.  Especially when there are still so many good books I haven't read yet, and so many concerts and games my kids are involved in, and so many presents to buy and wrap, family pictures to take, and so many cookies to bake.

But even with all that in mind, I'd like to take the opportunity to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas.  I wish you all the peace, joy, and hope the Light of the World brings to the hearts of us all.  And I also wish you a moment of quiet by the fire with your cup of cocoa, even if it is only metaphorically.