But the economy stinks. My husband’s business (he’s been a small business owner for 17 years) is suffering and I work part-time for a nonprofit. College tuition and insurance all comes due in December. Fortunately my kids are not looking for the “wow” gift, but I wish I could come up with one and give it to them anyway. The weather is warm which just shouldn’t be in December (if I can’t have snow I at least need cold).<\/p>\n

But all is not lost. Perhaps this is the year I am forced to look beyond the tinsel and wrapping paper, the lights and the music. I didn’t think I had forgotten the true source of Christmas joy – but perhaps I have. I shall set my eyes upon the miracle birth of our Savior. No money, no lights, no tinsel required.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I confess, I am in a bit of a spot. Like Charlie Brown, I just don’t have the Christmas Spirit (yet). Our tree is up and it’s beautiful this year. The house is decorated inside and out. Christmas cards are going out this week. I sang in a fantastic Christmas concert on Sunday. Some presents …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7zbKo-KE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2892"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}