Dear Family and Friends,Merry Christmas!
I love Christmas time. It is so magical and beautiful. As Kermit “Bob Cratchit” sings in The Muppet Christmas Carol, “The world is at her best, you know, when people love and care.” I have seen and felt much love and care this year, and I have seen how love can change lives for the better.
The many challenges and experiences I have had throughout this year, including heartbreak from a failed relationship, the sudden passing of a dear friend, intense service opportunities as the Relief Society president of my LDS ward, and most recently two ankle surgeries, have all brought many emotional and physical ups and downs, but in the end, I feel so blessed to be alive; to be in the care of great doctors and therapists who help me improve each day; to know that when I heal from the emotional and physical wounds I’ll be better than ever; and especially to be surrounded by my wonderful family and friends who truly are “people who love and care” and have supported and helped me with EVERYTHING. I am also especially grateful at this Christmas time for the birth of Jesus Christ and His atonement that makes everything we do possible.
One of my all time favorite stories is Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Following a harrowing night of being haunted by the ghosts of his past, present, and future, Ebenezer Scrooge awakens to a beautiful Christmas morning, a changed man who “became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. . . . [I]t was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”
Love and peace,
Susannah
