December...

 I am so excited for this holiday season.  I can't wait to get started with gift wrapping, parties, cooking delicious sweets, gift giving, family, friends, gift buying, the hustle and bustle, the lights, the music, and so much more.  But what I am most excited for is the spirit that Christmas brings the whole month long.  I love that everyday I think of my Savior and his humble birth. 

December also brings a bucket full of emotions for me.  I remember several years ago feeling the spirit so strong that I wasn't interested in the gifts, and the parties and all the normal Christmas activities.  The spirit enveloped me and my family, and taught me that the most important thing I could ever have or want is my family.  I remember praying that what I was feeling would never leave me.  Every year as December approaches I begin to have anxiety attacks, dreams brought on by fear, and I break into to tears just a little bit easier than normal because I want so badly to feel that feeling I had 11 years ago.  I lost so much that year, but also gained more than I could have imagined.  I lost my brother to cancer, something I could not bare to go through again, but I gained such a testimony of my Heavenly Father, my Savior, and the atonement, that I wouldn't change the events of December 1999 if I were given the chance.  The love I felt, the spirit I felt, and the peace I felt can never be described.  Don't get me wrong, if I could have Jared here I would, but that wasn't the Lord's plan for him, and I am thankful that the Lord was able to teach me through Jared's death.  I cherish that more than any gift I have ever been given.

Over the year's I have learned to enjoy the traditional Christmas activities again, but never without the memory that brought me so close to my Heavenly Father, and my family! 

I hope that everyone has the most wonderful Christmas.  I pray that it will bring peace, joy and love to each of you!  Merry Christmas!!!