December 29 - Day 38

Self-Care

New Year’s Eve preparation. How would you like to spend it? You can plan a quiet, comfortable evening (whether alone or with trusted company), or a big event with all the gang. It’s totally your choice.

Christmases of the Modern Prophets

In 1937, President Joseph Fielding Smith was adjusting to life without his beloved wife Ethel, who had recently died. Ethel had asked that Jessie Evans, a single woman with a beautiful singing voice, perform at her funeral. Through that encounter, Jessie Evans and Joseph Fielding Smith became better acquainted and their mutual attraction blossomed into love. She accepted his proposal of marriage shortly after Christmas. In contemplating the gifts he had received the Christmas of 1937, President Smith wrote, “I have received [Jessie] as a Christmas present, for which I am grateful.” They were married the following April.

One of President David O. McKay’s annual family traditions was to take the grandchildren riding on a bobsleigh pulled by a fine team of horses, “bells a-jingle.” The ride was one of their favorite traditions. President McKay continued it into his 80s. To stay warm, President McKay wore his long, thick raccoon coat and big gloves. The smaller grandchildren rode in the sleigh, but the older ones “whizzed along behind on their own sleds” tied to the back of the bobsleigh. These long-to-be-remembered Christmas celebrations sometimes ended with carols around the piano and singing “Love at Home.”

During World War II, many cities in the United States enforced nightly blackouts to conserve fuel. In Salt Lake City the floodlights on the Salt Lake Temple were turned off. The temple stood dark in a dark city for years. When the ceasefire was declared in Europe, President Heber J. Grant ordered the floodlights of the temple turned back on.

For Christmas 1945, President George Albert Smith planned an inspiring and meaningful Christmas card. On the front was a photograph of the three eastern spires of the Salt Lake Temple beautifully lit against a dark blue background with the angel Moroni figure standing above. Across the bottom were the words “Christmas—1945” and the message “The lights are on again.” Nothing could have better reflected the joy felt by everyone after so many long years of death and destruction.

But this beautiful Christmas card was also President Smith’s way of bearing his testimony of Jesus Christ and the Restoration of the gospel. Just as the end of the war brought peace and light in dark places, the Restoration of the gospel following the centuries-long Apostasy turned the bright lights of truth “on again” for all the people of the world.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2012/12/prophets-at-christmastime

The Gift of Scripture

“The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4:14

“I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” John 6:51

Remembering our Loved Ones Who Now Live in Heaven

Write a letter to your loved one, sharing your hopes, fears, and goals for the year ahead. Reflect on what they might say to encourage you.

Great Gifts

“Our Heavenly Father has innumerable gifts of light and truth prepared to shower down on each of us, His treasured children. They flow from our Bounteous Giver like a wellspring in the wilderness from His benevolent heart.”

“But we could receive nothing without the greatest of all the Father’s gifts, His beloved Lamb, His Son, Jesus Christ. All of our Father’s gifts flow from and are activated by the Saviour’s willing offering in Gethsemane and on the cross and His triumphant Resurrection. Jesus Christ, our merciful Redeemer, is the supreme gift from our Father of lights. “In the gift of his Son hath God prepared [for us] a more excellent way.” - Patrick Kearon

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2025/04/55kearon

A Simple Gift to Someone

The gift of a future plan. Immediately suggest and schedule a specific, concrete activity to do with a loved one soon, showing you value time with them beyond the holiday.