Christmas celebrations have already begun in our home and so much excitement is in the air.  A little Christmas music from Pandora and a little mommy/daughter time in the kitchen working from a recipe I got from my job and decided to try.  My daughter really enjoyed contributing to our meal and it excited me to see the look on her face so early in the morning. As we cooked, so many things flowed through my mind about the new memories we were making together and how important it is to be in the moment because as we know life changes so fast and this time next year life could shape up to be even different compared to this current year.

As often happens, I got the notion to add an element of surprise to the morning so while our masterpiece was baking, I sent my daughter out of the room and I set up our little table and used my “mimosa” type glasses for our orange juice and made a centerpiece out of our sliced fruit. I wished I’d have been prepared to capture the picture you don’t see above of her placing her face in her hands in such humble submission as if to say, “I’m overwhelmed and don’t deserve this type of treatment.” And then a scripture that I’ve always used to discuss disciplining a child for bad behavior came to mind.

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6

Then I knew that an even greater thing had happened than I had planned for the moment. My daughter would know that she deserves surprises and special treatment and hopefully by me continuing to do things like this-that she should expect them often.  Notice that we still ate from paper bowls and in case you can’t tell we had plastic cutlery wrapped in our napkins.

I hope the practical message will be a blessing to men and women all over the world who read my blog posts each week.  It doesn’t take the stress of going beyond your means to make the special people in your life feel special.  Most of the time, if they’ve been “trained” properly, you will see that it’s “just the little things” that go a long way!  Be blessed this Christmas holiday and in the New Year to come!