The best Christmas present ever!!!! Well, almost...

With the exception of some minor landscape repairs, touching up paint and some stone trim beneath the front door, our garage project is finished!!! Merry Christmas to us!

Final dimensions, inside, are 24 X 22, which means...lots of room. Our trailer lives in here, along with a lot of my tools, and some things we inherited from my dad. This also means Lori can begin to reclaim her laundry/project room space in the basement, which has doubled as our garage type storeroom all this past year since Dad went Home. The top picture is today, Christmas Eve, and the bottom picture was taken three weeks ago. The inside is now finished and I moved my stuff into it the first couple days of my Christmas vacation from school. I only wish Dad could be here to share my joy in this "simple" project's completion.

I have been reminded by some recent car commercials about "best presents". While I am certain that nothing could ever top the present God gave us in sending His Only Son about 2000 years ago, I have been thinking a lot about my favorite Christmas presents which I have received over the last 40 years. There was, of course, my red tricycle, my big wheel, the WWII airplane with the fold up wings, the cards from my uncles that always included a $5 or even $10 bill, and the year I got a T.V. ( black and white, of course) from my grandparents, which made my parents a little put out. Then there was the year I got a blue Schwinn Beach Cruiser 5 speed, which my parents cleverly hid at an elderly neighbor's until Christmas morning. The neighbors called my Dad and asked him to come help fix something, which neighbors were always asking my handy father to do. He asked me to come along and help him. Well, when I walked in the door, and saw that bike sitting in the middle of their living room, I about fell over. That would probably be my "best childhood Christmas ever" moment.

And then there have been many Christmas' since, where I have enjoyed watching my children play with their new found presents, and enjoyed watching their grandparents watching and enjoying them just as much. It truly is a blessed season, with so much to give thanks for.