It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I've been in a really positive place the last couple weeks, and I'm incredibly thankful. I know it has a lot to do with my being more focused and intentional in my quiet time with God, and, oddly enough, the situation at Summit has caused me to really push in closer to Him, even in the midst of a crappy situation. It's really starting to feel like the holiday season!

Today I got to feel like Santa! I took the toys our family bought for the City Life Club kids over to Erika's house today to be wrapped. Words can't describe how excited I am to participate in my first CLC Christmas party tomorrow... I have fallen in love with these kids, and I just want to see the joy on their faces when they open the gifts that they might not have received otherwise. I also drove down to the Zebra Coalition house with Ana, and we dropped off a few bags of donations for their Holiday Drive. It made me so happy to see how many donations they've already received, just after two days of the drive being open! We got the chance to chat with Dexter for a couple of minutes too. He is one of the sweetest men I've ever met. I hope I get the chance to go back with Ana next week to help start sorting out the donations. Any chance I get to volunteer with Zebra, I'm going to take.
Ana and I also got to have good conversations about Les Miserables, Once Upon a Time and Walking Dead, among other things.

I'm in the process of pulling together my Christmas gifts for friends and family, and I have to say while it can be stressful sometimes, especially when you have friends like Charlie who are really hard to figure out what to get/make, this is my favorite part of the Christmas season. I love trying to figure out something personal and thoughtful that the person will know is meant specifically for them. I love seeing the happiness that it brings to the people I care about. The older I get, the more I care about what I give than what I receive, and really that's the way it should be - not just at Christmastime, but year round! If we could always have "the Holiday Spirit" even in the heat of the summer, I think we'd all be a lot nicer to one another.

I'm looking forward to inducting Megan into the world of White Christmas tomorrow, it's my all time favorite holiday movie, and she's never seen it! The closer it gets to Christmas the more joyful I find myself becoming, which is really amazing, considering that before Thanksgiving I was dreading the holidays this year. It's all because of Him, and I am so incredibly thankful.