Monday, December 22, 2025

December's Goin' Just Fine!

With last Friday’s shows at Newport and Brookstone Meadows, Claire and I finished off an absolutely fantastic “When Swing Was King” Christmas season. And, in doing so, we tied a record -- 17 shows in all! Our presentations 2 two senior centers in Branson, 1 up in Tekemah, 1 at New Cassel, 1 “home show,” a special Saturday WSWK Brunch at our house, and then our regular schedule of 11 senior facilities. And, along the way, we enjoyed even more heartwarming conversations than usual with residents, family members, and facility staff. It was really tremendous. Thank You, Lord! 

And yet as beautiful and plentiful as were our “When Swing Was King” moments, there were many, many more highlights of the Christmas season in which we have been blessed beyond measure. Among those highlights -- listening to Andy Williams Christmas music while parked alongside Table Rock Lake outside of Branson with snow softly falling around us...Baking and decorating cookies and handing them out to friends and neighbors...In-person visits with my cousins and Claire’s brother besides our Tuesday Zoom conversations with my siblings...Profoundly Christmassy church services at Aksarben Village Senior Living...Giving away a lot of signed copies of The Christmas Room...Coffees and meals out with friends...Claire’s making our home a gorgeous Christmas atmosphere for reading, for music, for entertaining, for writing letters and cards, for living!...Cleaning snow off the drive and walks (our neighbor’s too)...Prayers and singing Christmas carols with fellow pro-life champions in front of the Planned Parenthood abortion business...And hosting (so far) a Brunch event and 3 dinner parties...with 7 more evening dinner parties and 1 big Christmas Day dinner to go! (That Christmas Day, by the way, will find 11 of us squeezed in here with a large and creative menu to meet our guests’ varied dietary restrictions based on health and/or religious background. (We have 4 internationals attending.)

So, you can see, because of these wonderful opportunities yet before us (and because we celebrate all 12 days of Christmas plus 12th Night and Epiphany, there remain for us plenty of Christmas blessings to come! Bring ‘em on!