This is my daughter and our friend Greg outside of the Cub Foods in "X Suburb" (can't give the name of the town because I don't want to get the manager in trouble). We rang the bell, sang Christmas songs, and dared say..... (OK - please keep an open mind... I could get in big trouble for admitting this, but.....) we said, "Merry Christmas!" to the customers!! The manager of the store said that we could say whatever we wanted because people will complain no matter what you say and frankly he'd like to hear it a little after so many years of this greeting being censored. So we did and it felt good, too! We are clearly (and some would even say "harshly") discouraged from any public mention of God here in Minnesota, so this was quite risky behavior on our parts... but this public display of our faith was making us downright giddy....;-)But political correctness aside, I was amazed and touched by the generosity of the patrons at Cub Foods. Roughly half of the customers put money in those red kettles. Did you know that? I would never have guessed the percentage was that high. I think it was important for my kids to see that so many fellow humans give so freely. It put us all in such a great mood.... 'tis the season.
Last night Trimama and Taconite Boy, my hubba, and 4 other friends went to the Michael W. Smith Christmas show . We had a fancy dinner at a really cool "French Mediterranean-style" restaurant beforehand in downtown St. Paul, went to the show, and then stopped back at the local tri hangout, Kip's Irish Pub. It was a lovely night - the music was beautiful, the company perfect, the trees brightly lit, the reason awesome.
