It’s Christmas again, the season of love and good will. It is the season of undying hope and Christian charity. It is the time of the year when kindness wells up within the most hardened souls. Christmas is the season when we look forward to the sound of carols, and sleigh bells, and most of all the musical laughter of little children.

Take a look at my Christian Storyteller’s listing!

A few weeks ago we entertained a guest from China. He and his wife and Lois and I ate together at Bob Evans when we picked him up from the airport. I had coffee. He had tea. I was raised in Ohio. He was raised on the other side of the world. But we bowed to thank God for our meal together because we had Christ in common. As we ate together and talked we discovered something more.

Chuk, our third-born child, second-born son, will turn nineteen on November 29, 2004. When he was small he was especially top-heavy. He had a big head when he was a little kid and it has taken him years for his body to catch up to his head. He was really a cute kid but he was as tipsy as a weeble, so top-heavy he just couldn’t stay on his feet.

Lois’s grandmother was married for a few years to a man named Jess Curtis. He was a kind man who lived in a lovely remote “holler” in Kentucky miles from the tiny remote town of Campton. It was a simple and winsome place.

On an autumn evening John Walsh treated us to a story-telling. He must have been at his best. It was a memorable evening… I’m the guy in the suit in the foreground.

As usual for the first of November in this part of the world the wind has stripped bare the last of the leaves from all but the oaks. The rest of the leaves blew out of the trees like colorful snow. Kendall Krause, a faithful Stonebridge subscriber had a birthday yesterday. He is on staff here. His wife Penny made him apple pie. We visited them after church last night and helped them eat it. It was good enough to make moderation difficult.

Every year I write each of the children a birthday letter. Usually it follows a simple outline. I profess my delight in them, give some examples from my memory and then go on to give them advice for the new year before I close by expressing my love and life-long commitment to them. Kyle turned twenty-three on Saturday and I departed from tradition and gave him no advice. Instead I listed two or three dozen memories that live in my heart as examples of the delight …