What I've Loved This Christmas

I love being around Christlike people, especially old people.  I love gaining wisdom from them.  They have so many experiences to share.

I love helping others in need, but I always feel that I am more blessed than the one I help because it makes me feel so happy to help them.

I love how unselfish people can be at Christmastime and wish the season would last all year!  I have so much to work on to become more unselfish.

I love studying the life of Christ in the New Testament and learning by His example.

I love songs about Christ, listening to them and singing them.  I heard a verse to “The First Noel” that I had never heard before.

Then let us all with one accord
Sing praises to our heavenly Lord
That hath made heav’n and earth of nought
And with his blood mankind has bought.

I love the last verse of “In the Bleak Midwinter.”

What can I give Him, Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wise man, I would do my part.
Yet what I can I give him, Give my heart.

Most of all, I was touched listening to Jane Seymour tell the story of King Wenceslas at the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas concert while the choir sang intermittently. 

Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night, tho' the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight, gath'ring winter fuel. 

"Hither, page, and stand by me, if thou know'st it, telling,
Yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?"
"Sire, he lives a good league hence, underneath the mountain;
Right against the forest fence, by Saint Agnes' fountain."

"Bring me flesh, and bring me wine, bring me pine logs hither:
Thou and I will see him dine, when we bear them thither."
Page and monarch, forth they went, forth they went together;
Through the rude wind's wild lament and the bitter weather.

"Sire, the night is darker now, and the wind blows stronger;
Fails my heart, I know not how; I can go no longer."
"Mark my footsteps, good my page. Tread thou in them boldly
Thou shalt find the winter's rage freeze thy blood less coldly." 

In his master's steps he trod, where the snow lay dinted;
Heat was in the very sod which the saint had printed.
Therefore, Christian men, be sure, wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing.