Commentary

Making a Christmas Gift shopping list can be tough. But with a Christmas Gift shopping list, you can still get the gifts you know you will need.

When I was doing my own planning for this column, the Country Boy told me he could easily write it – so, I gave him the chance. Here is his version of this post:

“Christmas shopping? Easy! Make a list. Now, give it to your wife. Done!”

Well, I hate to spoil his fun, but making a Christmas Gift shopping list just isn’t that easy! But it can still be a simple task to do, and the perfect thing to explore while curled up in a chair and enjoying a cup of hot chocolate!

Step 1 – Making a

Shopping List

Before you can shop for anyone, you need to know who you are shopping for. Keep in mind, shopping for Christmas gifts may not be just for family members. You may enjoy doing small things for your neighbors, a friend, and if you have children in school, teachers.

Last Thursday, we all gathered at the family hunting camp in Grand Cane for Thanksgiving.

It was the first time we had done this, as we usually go to Mom and Dad’s house in Mansfield.

There were “the sixteen of us”, as we call ourselves: Mom, Dad, my family of five, and my sisters and their husbands and families. Cousins galore.

All was going well. The Bears vs Lions game was blaring. Several of us were in the kitchen preparing and laying out dishes. There was the usual chattering and laughing.

The dressing, sweet potato casserole, corn casserole, yeast rolls, salad, and iced tea were all placed around the island in the kitchen.

Finally, someone said, “Well, where’s the turkey?”

Things suddenly got quiet.

People stood very still and got that deerin-the-headlight look in their eyes.

Stone-faced, Mama said, “I don’t have a turkey.”

“Quit teasing, Mama!” my sister Ashley said. “We know you’re joking.”

We all know that Thanksgiving is a time to express gratitude for the big stuff: family, friends, good health, food, job, and home.

But I also like to give thanks for those “little random things” that are easily overlooked.

This year, a few things come to mind, in no particular order:

The lifting of the mask mandate at LSU Baton Rouge. Now my college freshman son can finally live un-muzzled and free.

“Larry’s Chicken” at El Cabo Verde on Southern Loop in Shreveport. It is just perfection.

The YouTube channel “Eternal Call.”

Amazon. Need I say more?

4C Coffee in Grand Cane, and the upcoming Rhino Coffee on Southern Loop. (Hey, I’m just thankful for good coffee!) Our recent purchase of Blink home security cameras.

Our recent purchase of Blink home security cameras.

Reruns of The Golden Girls.

Cinnamon TicTacs being available after a decade of being discontinued.

Be Thankful For:

The family and friends that surround you.

The love and laughter you experience each and every day.

The ability to lend a helping hand – to those you know and those you don’t.

The soldiers and other military personnel that work day and night to protect your freedom.

The smiles you give and get that brighten even the gloomiest of days.

Each and every day you wake up – and be sure to make the absolute best of it, no matter what your circumstances are.

The old and young alike. The old can help you learn from history; the young can teach you new things.

The joy of life itself –and the ability to offer it as a gift to others.

The love of a Savior who teaches us what it truly means to be thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving –

From the Farm Wife, Country Boy and all the critters on our farm

My dear friend *Laraine who teaches middle school in the Cincinnati area has many eighth graders who are overly focused on “their preferred pronouns.”

In fact, the school’s administration admonishes the staff if they do not embrace the student’s choice pronoun usage to describe their “choice of sexual identity.”

One of Laraine’s female students has recently decided to “be a male.”

*Catherine has asked Laraine to call her *William, and has also asked for “male pronouns” to be used.

Laraine, a devout Christian, is compassionate and kind to “William,” but has decided that using male pronouns in this instance is not only inaccurate but also dishonest, hypocritical, and a rejection of biblical ideas.

“I do call this student ‘William,’” she told me, “because I will respectfully call each student by the name or nickname that they prefer. But, for me, using a male pronoun for a biological female is endorsing ideas that the Bible calls false.”

I wait all year for October.

While many are mourning the passing of summer, I look forward to bringing out the sherpa and sweatshirts.

I’m glad to trade lemonade and popsicles for hot chocolate and cider.

I look for to an excuse to cook a pot of chili or my grandma’s recipe for vegetable-beef soup.

I get excited when the air smells like fallen leaves and bonfires, when it gets dark early, when pumpkins are on sale everywhere, and when jackets are mandatory for comfort at Friday night football games.

I smile when I walk outside with my coffee in the early morning and see my breath in the crisp autumn air.

In October, there’s a certain “quiet” at night without the crickets and frogs.

We finally have moments without mosquitoes. I burn my pumpkin spice candle while baking pumpkin spice bread and

I burn my pumpkin spice candle while baking pumpkin spice bread and brewing pumpkin spice coffee.

As far as I’m concerned, the only dog breed is the miniature schnauzer.

My husband says our two schnauzers — a boy, Kaiser, and a girl, Bailey — are “needy” for me.

I tell him, “They’re not needy! They’re just … loving.”

My husband Marshall tells me that when I go into a room and close the door, Kaiser and Bailey stand as still as a statue with their noses against the door until I return.

Marshall will send me pictures on my phone with the caption: “Needy.” When I sit down on the couch with my cup of coffee early in the morn

When I sit down on the couch with my cup of coffee early in the mornings, Kaiser and Bailey sit as close to me as white on rice.

If I get up to go into the kitchen for more coffee, they follow.

Marshall tells me that when I leave the house, Kaiser paces the floor. He finally gets tired and retires to his perch on the back of the couch, but every little noise causes him to stare at the door.

“The Enemy Within”

We’re definitely on life-support and gasping for air.

And, the longer we’re there, the less likely we’re going to come off alive.

Right now, that’s the dismal prognosis of those who end up on a ventilator in ICU because of COVID. But, in reality, it seems to me the same, sad state-of-affairs is true for America the further we go down the road to totalitarianism, liberalism, skepticism, Marxism/ socialism, etc.

Yes, for decades—in reality, ever since the 1960s—our nation’s been on a downward path of moral, ethical and spiritual decay and degradation that ultimately will lead us to destruction from within.

In the 1960s we watched the advent of wholesale rebellion against authority and God-given values in the form of Woodstock, LSD, the burning of draft cards and bras, etc. Then, our society began listening more to Dr. Spock than they did the Bible.

“Could This Week Be the Week?”

Yes, could this week be the week?

“For what?” one asks with a puzzled look.

“For President Biden’s removal from office and Trump’s return?” asks another person, who supports all the conspiracy theories.

And, my answer is the same as the one given by someone when asked “What do you think about ignorance and apathy?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care.”

But, I do care about what possibly might happen in light of God’s Word and Endtime prophecies. And, that’s why I asked the question: “Could this week be THE week?”

You know: the week when Jesus comes back again as He promised (John 14:1-4; Acts 1:9-11)?

Why would I think that way?

Quite simply because this past Monday night at sundown began the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, which will continue until sundown next Monday, Sept. 27.

One of my chicks has flown the nest.

Two weeks ago, we moved our oldest son Reece into his dorm at LSU. He’s studying Economics and Philosophy in the Ogden Honors College with dreams of becoming a lawyer and a professor.

In the months leading up to his move-in day, I tried to soak in the sound of his footsteps booming down the wooden stairs, the way he played Grateful Dead’s “Brown-Eyed Women” beautifully by-ear on the piano in our living room, and his casual, deep-voiced “Love y’all” when he was leaving to go hang out with friends.

I made the mistake of listening to Katrina Kenison’s “The Gift of an Ordinary Day” on YouTube.

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