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Passing glorious time

We just finished the Thanksgiving holidays here in the U.S. For my family, that meant no school for our two kids and no going into work for my husband. Our closer friends happened to be traveling to see family, so that meant four days of pure family time for us--a rarity--filled with a collection of simple yet wonderful moments: We laughed as we watched cold-front winds fill the sky thick with fall leaves but blow our yard completely clean of them (though subsequent nights of frost brought a whole new layers down). We saw deer walking through our backyard and a whole slew of squirrels jump from tree to tree. For two days, we carried in boxes of Christmas lights, stockings, decorations and bows from the garage and spilled them across the house. Later, I watched my nine-year-old daughter engage her four-year-old brother in the story of Jesus' birth as she moved tiny figures of Mary, Joseph, a sheep and donkey around a minature stable, and then listened to her read the first chapter of Mark as her daddy made pancakes and my son sat on my lap. When we ventured out, my husband, daughter and I got to see her little brother walk up to a Santa at the mall with a kind of wide-eyed awe that suddenly ushered back a sense of wonder to each of us. We ate popcorn, watched movies, read books, talked to grandparents on the phone and ate more food than we should have. I must say, it was glorious!