I was doing some holiday shopping at Michael’s (the craft store) in the late afternoon when I heard a conversation in the next aisle between a mother and her six-year-old child.

“Oh, Mama, look at this!”

“Uh huh.”

“I love this!!”

“Uh huh.”

“I have one don’t I!!!”

“Uh huh.”

“You made it for me didn’t you Mama!!!!”

“Uh huh.”

“Can you make one for Sissy?”

“Uh huh.”

As I listened to the excitement and love for her mother in the child’s voice and the drone of her mother’s responses, tears welled up in my eyes. I thought about how many times I’d done the same thing with my children when they were young. After all, the holiday season meant I had a centerpiece to make, a decoration for the coffee table to think about, colors to consider, people to impress and not enough time! 

The Cheddar Family is the mouse family that lives in our home. 

Merry Christmas from the Cheddar family! We hope your year has been blessed with good times, good food, great friends and lots of love and fun.

Our family has grown and it’s always such a blessing to celebrate new life, (way too much life to write about in our Christmas letter).

I gave my husband Colby a cellphone for his birthday in April and he loves the video camera that’s on it! He’s really gotten good at videotaping Terry and Pam, the humans we share our home with. These two are crazy and now we have tangible proof because of the camera!

Before I share the highlight of our year, I want you to know, no one was injured.  When I tell you what they did you could be shaking your head and stressing over what happened. Anyway Colby has a video for you, so I'll let it show you what happened!

Merry Christmas to you all. I feel so honored to have you in my life, even though I haven’t met most of you in person. I write for you from my heart and I’m honored when you send such loving comments reflecting your love back to me. I know how busy you all are, yet throughout the year many of you have taken time to share your love with me. And to those of you who haven’t written to me, I know in my heart you are a SHE just like me and I love you.

Lately I’ve been practicing being satisfied in every moment I can. Because I’m an optimist, I expect everything to work out and when I bump into problems, they’ll often throw me…for a while, until I can get back to practicing being happy moment-by-moment (or as many moments as I can consciously collect in my waking hours each day).

I meditate every day and have since I was 30. It’s such a personal aspect of my life I rarely share it because to write about it is akin to telling you how often I have sex. Ahemm, with that said, I’ll tactfully move on to why I'm sharing my spiritual practice with you today.

Here are some ideas to create Christmas traditions that'll turn into family memories you'll cherish for the rest of your lives. But before we get into them  watch this video we produced last week and you'll see a great example of families creating a Christmas memory.