Friends, welcome to the Ransantar Podcast. John Eldridge here this week. John Eldridge by himself in the studio. I don't know quite why that happened or how that happened

but it's been a busy season here and that Ransomed Hart as I'm sure it is for all of you out there with just, you know, things to get done and projects to button up and Christmas preparation to do and so here I am wanting to bring to you some thoughts

on navigating Christmas week, navigating the holidays.

And I want to begin by saying,

I love Christmas.

I love everything about it.

I am a sucker for beauty, romance, magic, memories, family, oh my goodness, like and then toss in the holy into the mix of that and and I I love it.

I love the holidays. I love this time of year. I love it I love the holidays I love this time of a year I love I love everything about it I love the beauty

everybody you know it's got their lights up and their houses decorated and I love that. I love the music. I love Christmas carols. I love the lyrics of some of the favorite kind of classic Christmas carols until he appeared and the soul felt

its worth. I mean, come on's it's fantastic and I love the season as well because it tends to be a

reflective time of year for a lot of people I know it is for me and for Stace because as you come into the

closing of the calendar year kind of gives you a chance to look back on the

year and some of us at least get a few days off around Christmas

so there's just a lot of good around it but it's also a time of year that raises a lot of emotion and a lot of I think expectations

and to be honest unspoken agreements that unless we pay attention to those things

unless we shepherd our hearts through the holidays we might get t-boned in this.

We might get, we might get in an emotional accident and not really know why or where that came from.

So this week, as we prepare to go into Christmas and Christmas Eve and all this means I wanted to just maybe offer a little fatherly counsel.

The first thing has to do with expectations.

And Stace and I talked a little bit about that last week,

but you want to be just be aware as you go into the week as you approach Christmas Eve

Services that maybe you go to or a part of, gatherings perhaps that you're a part of and

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