Dawn Leopard: The Day After...

I don't know about you but it feels like Thanksgiving left as fast as it arrived. And now the Christmas season is truly upon us and I'm praying it goes SLOW! I'm not sure why but it seems to creep up on me faster and faster as I get older and older. It's my favorite time of year but I never quite feel ready when it gets here and then it's over as well.

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving played out as you had hoped but if you met challenges along the way and faced a few curveballs, I pray you found joy in it even if you had to search for it or maybe still searching.

There's never been much tradition to our Black Friday. It's been different throughout the years. When the kids were little, my mom and I would hit the stores early (that meant 6am years ago not thanksgiving as it is now 😑). You would have to search and fight for those most wanted kid items. Now we have a thing called internet so it's a bit easier. Then there were years we shopped later in the day after filling up at my dad's restaurant. We would part ways to shop while dad took kids to a movie and then we all met up for dinner. Now, with a few kids working Black Friday, 😕 there's more lounging, for a few of us, and I spend more time shopping online than fighting the mob.

Today starts with a slow morning. (Another change is I cook Thanksgiving dinner and host instead of chilling like I used to while my mom slaved away. Now I really don't know how she did the early shopping run with me!) At some point we will find our way to the coffee bar where our son works and let him make us something yummy and high in caffeine. I'm sure we will meander to the mall just to walk around and be in the way of serious shoppers. And then having a family dinner of which I'm not cooking.

I'm super excited and my expectations are high as we begin Advent at church Sunday. If you're a little like me and struggling at times to find the excitement of the season, focusing on the true meaning will help us all. There's too much going on in the world at large and in so many homes all around us that the only hope we really have is Jesus. If you focus, like I do on too many days, on the happenings around us, the fear and hurt and evil just gets to be too much. But if we allow it to drive us to pray and find our hope and joy in Him, we can have a glorious joyful Christmas season. And that's what I want, I think we all do. So whether our season is strictly traditional with everything like it always is or there are some changes this year with people missing around the table or maybe a few extras added, let's find the joy in celebrating Jesus. Tis the season!!!

A few pics I'd love to share...

Fam time...