My last name is G-R-G-I-C-H (pronounced grrrrr-gitch). Growing up, and even now, I hear the strangest pronunciations. My younger sister used to say “garbage" and the kids at my school used to have some pretty clever ones too but I think my favorite one was, and still is, the “GRINCH”. For those of you who don’t know me I am basically the Grinch and I love it. Not in the way that I am trying to ruin Christmas but I am not the biggest fan of the Holiday. I love Jesus and celebrating His birth but everything else(trees, lights, presents, songs, Christmas cheer, etc) I could do without. When JB and I were planning on what to do for Camp’s social media for the month of December the idea of me dressing up as the Grinch came up. Childhood dream fulfilled. I was expecting to just have a good time retelling the story of the Grinch and that would be that. What I wasn’t expecting was to learn some real life lessons. Being vulnerable. Very early in the process of transforming me into the Grinch, I started to realize this was going to be quite the uncomfortable process. Wearing an onesie in addition to painting your face & hair has a way of making you notice all your flaws. (I now understand how Charlize Theron must have felt in Monster.) I don’t necessarily like being the center of attention especially when I feel so insecure and gross. What I did learn though amongst those feelings were that it’s okay to let people see you when you aren’t your best, a lesson I have been learning over the last couple years. Living in sin. The Grinch is a mean one and I like to think that I am generally a nice one. At first, it was difficult having to make my face grumpy or yell or do some low level destruction but once I got into it, it was sort of easy to throw tables and break gifts. It made me think about this season, about Jesus being born, and why I need a Savior. I forget how easy it is to live in sin. Sin can feel so natural and comfortable but Jesus didn’t come so I can be the same person I was before, which leads me to my next Grinch lesson. Realizing what a gift Jesus is. I grew up in the church, I know the story of Jesus fairly well but this year I have been brought to tears thinking about what a beautiful gift Jesus is. I find myself listening to the story of Jesus and looking at nativity scenes and feeling all the feelings. “ come, thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free; from our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee.” It could be that my sister is giving birth soon and I am drawing parallels between them but whatever the reason I am blown away by Jesus. These photos were supposed to just be funny, holiday cheer but let me tell you, my Grinch heart has grown. Christmas got to me guys. So my gift to all of you is this video of my new favorite Christmas song. Happy Christmas brothers & sisters, happy Christmas.