Two for One Department

This is not your typical Christmas photo. But it has a Christmas message. See the sunshine ready to break through? I took this dark photo at noon one day and named it "There is Always Hope."


And that's what Christmas is about: there is always Hope. His name is Jesus, the Light of the World.

And for a bonus: if you're suffering from extreme weather this winter, the theme also applies. Doesn't it? It's 0 degrees in Pancake Flats right now! I hope there is hope for warmth.


My First wife and I are going to Chicago this week (where it's warmer). We'll blog again when we get back.

Please accept our warmest wishes for the happiest of Christmases at your home. God bless, and thanks for visiting Pancake Flats this year.

Xtreme Christmas Department

Cliff Morrow inspired this post. He reported that his church had a delightful Christmas Cantata on a night when the thermometer said “Zero!” He also reported that they had plates and plates of Christmas Cookies afterward.

Not to be outdone, I thought I’d report on our church’s Xtreme Christmas held Sunday morning. We have a small church. About three to four hundred attend every Sunday, split up into two services. But for this Sunday, we all met in a Big City Convention Center. The past five years our church has held an Xtreme Christmas service.

During those services, several people are given help with personal needs. Like Christmas presents for the kids; like a couple of months of utilities or rent; like a semester’s tuition; like a half a truck-load of groceries; like Christmas presents for the parents, too. Oh, and we send box upon box of diapers, of frozen meat, of gift cards for gasoline and lattes. And on and on...


This year, we were aware of so many needy families in our community, that instead of wrapping gifts for weeks on end, we gave everyone gift cards to various stores and services. The smallest amount was $350 (lots of those); the highest amount was over $1,000. We were able to help over 140 families. One young lady received an Xtreme Check to help with hospital expenses for her preemie baby, who was born at 26 weeks! way back in September. This week she gets to go home! Yee-haw!

I don’t tell you this to toot our horn. I tell you this because the good folks in our little church gave big gifts to help less fortunate people have a nicer Christmas Season this year. Isn’t it interesting that when you want to help out, you always seems to have a little extra? Where does it come from? Jesus knows, I guess.

We all sang a bunch of carols—and were they ever vigorous! The preacher preached a little—got on TV, too.


Everybody was friendly; nobody was a stranger. One lady stepped out of her comfort zone—out of her grief—on the anniversary date of her daughter’s, and son-in-law’s and grandchild’s Xtremely Tragic deaths. Christmas time has not been pleasant for her the past several years, but she stepped up to the plate yesterday with an Xtreme Smile and welcomed everyone to our service. Just watching her was an Xtreme blessing for everyone. Jesus does things like that for you.

My First Wife and I hope your Christmas Season is Xtreme, too.

And by the way, when our church service started Sunday, the temperature was a balmy 60 degrees. When the service ended two hours later, it was a windy 32 degrees! By nightfall, 16 degrees and snowing! This morning it was 3 degrees! That's Xtreme!

Oh, and please visit My Hats Blog to meet one of the people who wore her hat to our church yesterday.

Jesus is the reason for the season.

Stamp Department

My First Wife and I always try to mail Christmas cards with a religious theme--after all, we're celebrating Christ's birthday. But we enjoy sending playful ones, too. However, we always try to get the Christmas stamps to put on the envelopes. And if there is a religious theme to them, all the better.

We're particularly impressed with this year's US Postal Service Christmas Stamp. On it, it says "Christmas" and shows a painting of our Christ child. We think that is a significant thing for our government to do this year.



Merry Christmas to you, too, Uncle Sam.

Christmas Gift Department

I went to our writers' club meeting tonight. They let me read the story below. It was a test. The first sentence had to say, "The Christmas treasure I thought I'd never find..." and the last sentence had to say, "Quietly, I said 'Thank you'." Please enjoy. It's a Christmas gift from me to you.

The Shiniest Present
by
Paul Nichols

The Christmas treasure I thought I’d never find found me when I was a senior in high school. Our family was poor, but stable. Both Mom and Dad worked hard and saved hard to send my two older brothers on to college. My sister Ruthie and I knew better than to ask our folks for anything that might hinder those boys’ education. Anyway, they would have said, “You want? You work.”

But they always let us ask for a Christmas gift and tried their best to get it under the tree. For twelve years I gave them a list of five items. Every year, I started the list with an electric train and a watch. In my senior year I also included a new pair of wintertime gloves. Then a wallet; a store-bought wallet that wouldn’t unravel like the one I made at camp several summers ago. And finally, a new net for my basketball hoop. Those last three only cost five dollars each.

“Just get one,” I told Mom, “Not all of them.” I gave her the list and waited for Christmas.

My part-time, after-school job was at Maxwell’s Market, and I was usually home by 9:30—or else! If I had had a watch, I would have been home on time, every time. I once vowed I’d save up enough for a real nice watch.

Mom and Dad saw to it that I set aside a tithe and some savings, leaving me precious little spending money. But that year, I saved up enough to get Mom, Dad and Ruthie their Christmas gifts; little books full of inspirational quotes.

On Christmas morning Ruthie was up first and turned on the tree lights. She made just enough noise to get Dad up. He started some coffee. The two of them talked till Mom shuffled herself to my room and said, “Merry Christmas, honey. It’s time to get up.”

That year Mom and Dad put three gifts under the tree for me. Unusual indeed. The first, wrapped in “manly” paper, was a really nice pair of warm leather gloves. Then I unwrapped a new basketball net. I knew what I’d be doing later that day. And finally, a smooth, genuine cowhide wallet. I was pleased and liked it right away.

But I was also embarrassed. “Dad, you only had to get one. Not all of them,” I said. My parents were poor, yet here they were squandering all their money on me. But look! Ruthie got three presents, too! One was a little watch with a bright pink patent leather band.

“There’s one last present down here waiting for someone to claim it,” Dad said.

Huh? I hadn’t seen that down there before. “Ruthie,” he asked, “what’s it say on that name tag?” She looked at it and then looked at me. “It’s for you,” she said. “Here."

“But I already got… Where’d it come from?”

“Open it, honey,” Mom encouraged.

I peeled off the paper and discovered a brown plastic box, hardly big enough to hold a baseball. “Wha…?” It required some twisting and prying to pop it open. Inside was something shiny. “What’s this?” I didn’t recognize it because it was upside down. I had never received a shiny, upside down present before. I turned it ov… A watch! My eyes saw it, but my mind had to wait a minute to catch on.

A watch! They gave me a watch for Christmas! “I don’t think this is for me,” I said quickly.

“Yeah, it is!” my sister yelled. “I got one, too!”

“But Mom…Dad…” My eyes exploded with tears. “…this is a watch.” I lost all composure. Completely astonished and sobbing unchecked, I collapsed with my shiny gift clutched close to my chest. How could they afford this? Where did they get all the money? They already gave me three presents.

Dad reminded me, “Now you take good care of that watch and it will take good care of you.” Mom stood beside him, smiling proudly.

I don’t know if I was crying because I was so thrilled to have that watch, or crying because I was so proud of my hard-working parent’s extra income. They had just given me the shiniest present I ever got. I stumbled across the room and hugged my mom. Whispering quietly, I said, “Thank you.”

Copyright 2008 by Paul Nichols

Jesus: He became like us so that we can become like him. Merry Christmas.