Mama Always ~ L.A. Brown, Author

Yes, it's the season. The season for over-crowded malls; over-sensitive shoppers; and kids who tend to be on their best behavior...until after the presents are opened Christmas morning. Thankfully, I chose to do most of my shopping online, which has its own hazards, thank you very much. The rest of it, the stuff I had  to do in person, well, I did that early. The only thing that I did at last minute was send out my parent's stuff and Punky's last box. Now, in my defense, I sent it out priority mail on the 10th figuring it wouldn't take more than seven days. Imagine my (mock) surprise when it took eleven. Meh...at least she got it finally. Anyway, since my last update, I've been pretty busy. I put everything on hold (with the exception of a couple of days right around Thanksgiving for cooking and such) to participate in NaNoWriMo. For those of you who are scratching their heads right now and going, "huh?", that's National Novel Writers Month, NaNoWriM...

With all of the hustle and bustle that we experience during the Holiday Season, it so easy to overlook little things. We are so busy trying to make sure that every stocking is filled, that underneath the tree is bursting with packages; that our menus are set for that Christmas party or the dinner with family that we forget.....a lot. I don't know when the tradition of gift giving started, to be honest, at six o'clock in the morning one would be hard pressed to find me researching anything. However, this was laid on my heart, so with fingers on the keypad, here I go.  Like I said, I do not know right off the top of my head when exchanging gifts on Christmas became a tradition, perhaps it started on that starry night so many many years ago in Bethlehem when the Magi came bearing gifts for the newborn King. How do I know it was a starry night? The Scripture plainly says that the Magi were following a star that appeared in the sky and that they followed it to their destination, B...