After stumbling around looking for contentment for years, I suddenly learned that you cannot find it by hunting furiously for it. Happiness sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open.

John Barrymore, as quoted in The Reader’s Digest, 1934

Thank you to everyone who has followed along with my recording of the graces in 2024. Your weekly encouragement and conversations about the shared stray gifts mean so much. Those of you who text me photos of your daily gifts and blessings inspire me to keep looking for more!

“Happiness sneaks through a door you didn’t know you left open”. Keeping open eyes, hearts, and hands to what God may provide in a day is keeping life’s door open so that He can enter the everyday ordinary. While 2024 had its challenges, it was full of stray gifts that kept me noticing God in ways I hadn’t seen before. I enjoy texts from friends and family who have little surprises throughout their day, too – a bright red cardinal at the feeder, a set of keys that was lost but found, gifts of time used to make art, wildflowers gathered to bring during a hospital visit, a card in the mail on a day when you felt forgotten, beautiful days to sit on a back porch, and many prayers answered. Do you keep a journal? Do you write on a blog? Or do you keep stray gift photos on your cellphone to look back over occasionally? God shows up in the big and the little things. I was reviewing past blog posts of 2024 and am so glad I keep a record. There’s so much to thank Him for.

With that in mind, here are the last stray gifts shared for December. I wish all of you a safe and Happy New Year. A description of the photos will be after the collage.

Top Row: 1) Eggs. I love eggs for breakfast, brunch, lunch, snack, or dinner. Twice this month, two eggs came out of one shell. It was a little exciting. (Did I mention I love eggs?) 2) Sometimes, we get stuck in a rut and watch TV for hours in the evening. One night, we plugged in the Wii and the three of us played a few games of bowling instead. We had forgotten how fun it was. Jonathan and I played tennis afterwards and tried to ‘whip the tar’ out of each other. haha. 3) Postage dies and stamps have been my favorite to work with this year in cardmaking. This year’s Christmas cards were made with a few new crafty supplies and Christmas paper I’d had in store for a few years.

Middle Row: 1) I used a new-to-me large ‘Merry’ die to make Christmas cards this year. 2) and 3) I played around with pinecone paper and made two similar cards for two different people. I liked the non-traditional holiday card colors.

Bottom Row: 1) Christmas cards I received from friends and family! One of them is handmade! 2) I enjoy the snow photos my friends from PA text to me. I also enjoy looking at them here in the 60-degree desert weather at the same time. 3) The church was clearing out the live poinsettias that were used to decorate for Christmas, so I brought one home. It needs to be repotted and I “just so happen” to have a flower pot the right size. Stray gifts!