Merry Christmas to our Comfort Silkie Family - you are a gift to us.

Gather your Christmas stories, snuggle into your Comfort Silkies, and enjoy the season.

Over the years I have always read special Christmas stories to the kids. Some have become a tradition. I hear ... read the one about the cows, read the one about the shell, and read the one about the little boy who got hurt. 

There is something comforting about quieting enough to hear a story be told. It still amazes me that letters line up to make a word and the words become a picture that makes us feel a story.

And so I love to tell the Christmas stories. Stories of sadness, and hope, and giving, and joy and all the feelings of Christmas.

So pretend your snuggled in our living room with us and enjoy a story. 

Here is one we especially like: 

Long Walk Part of Gift - G. Bath 

The African boy listened carefully as the teacher explained why it is Christians give presents to each other on Christmas. "The gift is an expression of our joy over the birth of Jesus and our friendship for each other," she said. 

When Christmas day came, the boy brought the teacher a sea shell of lustrous beauty. "Where did you ever find such a beautiful shell?" the teacher asked. 

The boy told her that there as only one spot where such extraordinary shells could be found. When he named the place, a certain bay several miles away, the teacher was speechless. 

"Why ... Why, it's gorgeous ...wonderful, but you shouldn't have gone all that way to get a gift for me."

His eyes brightening,, the boy answered, "Long walk part of gift."

This is one of my favorites I read on Christmas Eve:

One Solitary Life - G. Peck 

How do you explain the greatness of the Man whose birthday we celebrate on Christmas? 

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was 30, and then for three years was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. he never held office. He never owned a home. He never traveled 200 miles from the place where He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself. 

Although He walked the land over, curing the sick, giving sight to the blind, healing the lame, and raising people from the dead, the top established religious leaders turned against Him. His friends ran away. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mocker of a trial. He was spat upon, beaten and ridiculed. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While He was dying ,the executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth, and that was His robe. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. 

Centuries have come and gone, and today He is the central figure of the human race. All the armies the have ever marched and all the navies that were ever built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that have ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as has that One Solitary Life.

Thank you for being part of our story.