Daily Graces Return #207

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It has been over two years since we lost our home of 30 years to wildfire. Yet the loss sometimes feels as fresh as when it happened. It was the home where we raised our children and where in the last year or so we were there was also filled with remnants of our parents’ homes and earlier ancestors as well. People say “it is just stuff”, but it is much more than that. It is one’s history- encompassing not only ancestors, but the marking of our children’s lives in photos and keepsakes, and our own.

Daily Graces Return #201

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This Carol has an interesting background. The lyrics were written as a poem by a young man who was suffering from tuberculosis during a harshly cold winter in the early 1930s. He was inspired by his memories of playing as a child in the snow and dreaming of becoming healthy once again in order to enjoy the winter. He showed the poem to a musician friend who wrote the music for it. However, the young man, named Richard Smith, died one year later at the age of 34 and never saw how popular this Christmas Carol would become.