Well, hello, my friends and welcome to the live-inspired podcast Monday, Mourning

Moments, with John O'Leary.

We're going to call this one the Christmas special

baby, so grab your eggnog and get ready to rock and roll. You ready? All right. Several years ago,

with Christmas nearing and Beth and I unable to make eye contact with our boys due to their

hair covering their eyes, I loaded up the car and took our teenage due to their hair covering their eyes.

I loaded up the car and took our teenage kids to get some haircuts.

Despite their slump shoulders as they entered and the soft-spoken answers they provided as she worked,

the stylist could not have been sweeter to my boys.

And thanking her afterwards for how she made them look and how kind she had been to them.

She asked me a seemingly simple question.

So, John, are you ready for Christmas?

Now, I don't think she was asking or curious if the house was cleaned or the tree was up where the dinner rolls were ordered.

I don't think she was truly interested if my suit was ironed, the shoes were polished,

or the last several weeks of advent had prepared my heart appropriately for the final

couple weeks before Christmas.

Now, I think she was instead just curious if the shopping had been completed.

That's all she wanted to know.

Whether in salons, stores, office parties, we've all likely been asked a similar question

a bunch over the past several weeks.

Are you ready for Christmas?

Although the question is both common and kind, perhaps a better question to ask yourselves is this.

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