Welcome to Famous at Home in Five Minutes.

Practical insights for creating a family of connection, celebration, and purpose.

Christmas always brings up vivid memories of times I had with my dad.

That man bought more Christmas gifts than any one person needed.

He did. He loved Christmas. But the memories I hold most dear are the lights. Every year,

the weekend after Thanksgiving, he and I would hang the Christmas lights outside. He liked to line the roof with them.

I remember as a little tight climbing the ladder further and further each

year until one year I was on the roof doing the stapling all by myself. We draped them from

the bushes and we put them around the windows. As a little boy, those lights outside my bedroom

window created a Christmas ambiance as I fell asleep that sticks with me to this day.

The reason these memories are so near to Josh is because we lost his dad to congestive heart failure a few weeks before Thanksgiving in 2016.

That year, it was so difficult to feel like decorating for anything festive, especially Christmas.

Because when we're feeling tired and worn out,

depressed, or defeated, the last thing we want to do

is deal with a string of lights that don't work or won't untangle.

But I knew that if I didn't decorate and take the risk of throwing

a few strands of lights across the yard out of frustration, I'd lose my own sense of

joy. There was something about the way those lights lit up my room as a little boy that kept me

connected to the joy of Christmas and to my dad. I knew the way to honor him was to give to my

kids the same joy and excitement about Christmas he gave to me.

Yeah, that's why you'll see Josh, usually the weekend after Thanksgiving, putting up lights all over the house.

You'll hear Christmas music playing on the speakers and the smell of evergreen coming from candles.

...