Today the United Nations asks the whole world to stop and notice something important: every person is made in the image of God, and every person has gifts to share, including people whose bodies or minds work differently from ours.

Let me tell you about a girl named Helen Keller. She was born in Alabama in 1880. When she was not yet two years old, a terrible illness took away both her sight and her hearing. Imagine a world that is completely dark and completely silent. Helen could not see faces or hear words, so for years she had no way to tell anyone what she wanted.

Then a young teacher named Anne Sullivan came to live with the family. Anne spelled letters into Helen's hand with her fingers, over and over. One day she held Helen's hand under the cold water of the pump and spelled W-A-T-E-R. Suddenly Helen understood that the movements in her hand had a meaning. By that evening she had learned many new words.

Helen grew up to graduate from college, write books and travel the world speaking up for people with disabilities. Her story reminds us that patience, kindness and a good teacher can open a whole new world.

Today we celebrate the fastest animal that runs on land: the cheetah! A cheetah can go from standing still to about 60 miles per hour in just a few seconds. That is as fast as a car on the highway.

God designed the cheetah for speed from nose to tail. Its body is long and light, and its back bends like a spring with every stride. Its claws only partly pull back, so they grip the ground like the spikes on a runner's shoes. Its long tail works like a rudder on a boat, helping it steer and balance when it turns sharply.

Look closely at a cheetah's face and you will see two black lines running from its eyes to its mouth, like tear marks. Scientists think these dark lines help block the bright African sun so the cheetah can keep its eyes on what it is chasing.

Here is a surprise: cheetahs cannot roar like lions. Instead they chirp, a little like a bird, and they purr like a house cat. Today there are only about 7,000 cheetahs left in the wild, mostly in Africa, so people around the world use this day to learn how to protect them.

Did you know the word cookie comes from the Dutch word koekje, which means little cake? Dutch families who settled in early America brought their little cakes, and their word, with them.

One of the most famous cookies in the world was created by a woman named Ruth Wakefield. In the 1930s she ran an inn in Massachusetts called the Toll House, where she baked for her guests. One day she chopped up a bar of chocolate and stirred it into her cookie dough, and the chocolate chip cookie was born.

Baking cookies is a wonderful way to learn. When we measure flour, we practice fractions. When we watch butter and sugar change in the oven, we see science happening. When we wait for them to cool, we practice patience, which might be the hardest lesson of all!

Best of all, cookies are made for sharing. A plate of warm cookies on a neighbor's doorstep is one of the simplest ways to show love in December.

This evening, Jewish families around the world begin celebrating Hanukkah, which lasts for eight nights. In 2026 it begins at sundown on Friday, December 4, and ends at sundown on Saturday, December 12.

Hanukkah remembers something that happened more than two thousand years ago in Jerusalem. A cruel king named Antiochus tried to stop the Jewish people from worshiping God, and he set up an altar to a false god inside their holy Temple. A small group of brave men called the Maccabees stood up to his army and won.

When they cleaned the Temple and gave it back to God, they wanted to light the great lampstand again. Jewish tradition tells that they found only enough pure oil for one day, yet the lamp kept burning for eight days. That is why families light one more candle on the menorah every night. The word Hanukkah means dedication.

Here is something lovely for Christian families: in the Gospel of John we read that Jesus was in the Temple in Jerusalem during the Feast of Dedication, in winter. That feast is Hanukkah.

Today the United Nations asks us to look down at something we walk on every day without thinking: the soil!

Soil is not just dirt. It is made of tiny pieces of broken rock, rotting leaves, air, water and an enormous number of living things. A single spoonful of healthy soil holds more tiny living creatures than there are people on the whole earth. Most of them are far too small to see.

Soil grows almost all of our food. The bread on our table began as wheat growing in soil, and the apples in our lunch grew on trees with roots deep in the ground. Earthworms are some of the soil's best helpers. As they tunnel, they let air and water in, and they turn old leaves into rich food for plants.

Good soil takes a very long time to make. Nature may need hundreds of years to build just one inch of new topsoil, so caring for it is a way of caring for God's creation and for the families who will farm long after us.

Today is International Volunteer Day, a day set aside by the United Nations to thank the people who give their time to help others without being paid.

Volunteers are everywhere once you start to notice them. They serve meals at shelters, read to children at libraries, visit lonely people in nursing homes, coach sports teams and clean up parks. Many of the helpers at your church give their time as volunteers too.

The Bible tells us to serve one another humbly in love. Jesus himself washed his disciples' feet to show them that the greatest people are the ones who serve. Volunteering is one way we can follow his example.

You do not need to be grown up to be a volunteer. Children can draw pictures for people who are sick, help rake a neighbor's leaves, sort food at a food pantry with a parent, or simply be a friendly face to someone who is new.

Every December, millions of Christmas cards travel through the mail. But there was a time when no one had ever seen one!

In England in 1843, a busy man named Sir Henry Cole had too many friends to write long Christmas letters to all of them. So he asked an artist named John Callcott Horsley to design a printed card with a picture and a short greeting: A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You. About one thousand copies were printed, and that was the first Christmas card sold to the public.

Cards became popular because, a few years earlier, England had started the Penny Post. For the first time, a letter could be sent anywhere in the country for just one penny, so ordinary families could afford to send greetings to everyone they loved.

A homemade card is still one of the most precious gifts. It says, I thought about you and made this with my own hands.

Have you ever wondered how librarians find one book among thousands? Today we remember the man who helped them: Melvil Dewey, born on December 10, 1851, in New York.

When Melvil was a young man working in a college library, the books were arranged in a confusing way. He came up with an idea. What if every subject had its own number? In 1876 he published his plan, which we call the Dewey Decimal System.

It divides all knowledge into ten big groups, from 000 to 900. Books about religion are in the 200s. Books about science are in the 500s, and if you look in the 590s you will find books about animals. History and geography live in the 900s. Each book gets its own number on its spine, so it always goes back to the same place on the shelf.

Libraries in many countries still use this system today. Knowing it is a little like having a treasure map for your library.

Today is International Mountain Day. Mountains cover about a quarter of all the land on earth, and they are some of the most majestic things God has made.

Most mountains form very slowly. Deep under our feet, enormous plates of rock move a tiny bit every year, about as fast as your fingernails grow. Over a very long time, when two plates push against each other, the land crumples upward like a rug pushed against a wall. That is how the Himalayas were formed, and they are home to Mount Everest, the highest mountain on earth at about 29,032 feet.

Mountains matter even to people who live far away. Snow and rain that fall on mountains flow down as streams and rivers, and they provide fresh water for a huge number of people around the world. Mountains are also home to animals like mountain goats, snow leopards and golden eagles.

The psalmist wrote, I lift up my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

Today we have two cheerful celebrations. First, the poinsettia! Poinsettias grow wild in Mexico, where they can become tall shrubs. In Mexico the plant is called flor de Nochebuena, the Christmas Eve flower.

The plant got its English name from Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first United States minister to Mexico. In the 1820s he sent cuttings home to South Carolina, and the plant soon spread across America. Poinsettia Day is held on December 12, the day he died in 1851.

Here is a surprise to look for: the big red parts are not petals at all. They are special leaves called bracts. The real flowers are the tiny yellow buttons right in the center.

December 12 is also Gingerbread House Day. Building little houses out of gingerbread became popular in Germany, especially after the Brothers Grimm published the story of Hansel and Gretel in 1812, with its house made of sweets in the woods.

When the United States Constitution was written in 1787, many Americans worried. They asked, where does it say what the government is not allowed to do to us? Thomas Jefferson wrote to his friend James Madison saying the people deserved a bill of rights.

So James Madison wrote a list of changes, called amendments, to protect the freedoms of ordinary people. On December 15, 1791, enough states had agreed, and the first ten amendments became law. Together we call them the Bill of Rights.

The very first one, the First Amendment, protects five freedoms: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the freedom to gather peacefully and the freedom to ask the government to fix a wrong. Because of it, families can worship God openly, speak their minds and print books and newspapers.

One of the original copies of the Bill of Rights is kept today at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., beside the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Wilbur and Orville Wright were two brothers from Dayton, Ohio, who ran a bicycle shop. They loved to tinker, and they dreamed of something no one had ever done: flying a machine with an engine through the air and controlling where it went.

For years they studied birds, built gliders and tested their wing shapes in a homemade wind tunnel. They failed again and again, and every time they wrote down what they learned and tried once more.

On the cold, windy morning of December 17, 1903, at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville lay on the lower wing of their airplane, the Wright Flyer. The engine roared, the plane lifted off, and it flew for 12 seconds and about 120 feet. That is shorter than the wings of a jumbo jet today!

The brothers flew four times that day. On the last flight Wilbur stayed in the air for 59 seconds. Their patience changed the whole world.

On December 21, 1913, a newspaper called the New York World printed a brand-new kind of puzzle in its Sunday fun section. It was made by a journalist named Arthur Wynne, who had moved to America from England.

He called it a Word-Cross. The first one was shaped like a diamond, and readers had to fill in words that crossed each other, using clues to guess each answer. People loved it, and soon the name changed to crossword.

Today crossword puzzles are printed in newspapers and books all over the world. They are a wonderful way to practice spelling, learn new words and train your memory, all while having fun.

Words are a gift. The Bible tells us that in the beginning was the Word. Every time we learn a new word, we have a new way to describe the world God made.

Today is the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, and tonight is the longest night. The solstice happens at 3:50 p.m. Eastern Time on December 21, 2026.

Why does this happen? Our earth is tilted, like a top leaning a little to one side. As it travels around the sun, the top half of the earth is leaning away from the sun in December. The sunlight reaches us at a low slant, the days are short and the weather is cold.

On the other side of the world, in places like Australia and Argentina, it is the opposite. Today is their longest day, and children there are enjoying summer!

Here is the good news: starting tomorrow, our days will grow a little longer, minute by minute. Just a few days later we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Light of the World.

Tonight we remember the quiet night when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Mary and Joseph had traveled a long way, and there was no room for them in the inn. So the Son of God was born in a humble place and laid in a manger, the box where animals eat.

Out in the fields, shepherds were watching their sheep. Suddenly an angel appeared and said, Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy for all the people. Then a whole crowd of angels praised God. The shepherds hurried to Bethlehem and found the baby, just as the angel said.

One of the most loved Christmas Eve carols was written in a little village in Austria. On Christmas Eve 1818, a pastor named Joseph Mohr and a teacher named Franz Gruber sang Silent Night for the very first time, accompanied by a guitar. Today it is sung in hundreds of languages around the world.

Keep tonight simple. Read the story, sing together and wonder at God's great gift.

Merry Christmas! Today we celebrate the birthday of Jesus, God's greatest gift to the whole world.

Long before Jesus was born, the prophet Isaiah wrote, For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Hundreds of years later, that promise came true in Bethlehem.

We give gifts at Christmas because God gave us the best gift of all. The wise men also brought gifts to Jesus: gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Here is something many families forget: Christmas is not just one day! The Twelve Days of Christmas run from December 25 until January 5, and on January 6 many churches remember the visit of the wise men. So the celebrating, the carols and the learning can keep going long after the wrapping paper is cleared away.

The day after Christmas is a perfect day to say thank you.

In the Gospel of Luke there is a story about ten men who were very sick with a skin disease called leprosy. They called out to Jesus for help, and he healed all ten of them. But only one came back to thank him. Jesus asked, Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Jesus noticed when someone was grateful.

A thank you note is a small way to show love. When we write one, we stop and think about the person who gave us something and how they made us feel. It takes only a few minutes, but the person who receives it may keep it for years.

A good thank you note has three parts: say thank you for the gift by name, tell how you will use it or why you love it, and send a kind wish to the giver. Little ones can draw a picture and sign their name.

Have you ever caught a snowflake on your mitten and looked at it closely? A Vermont farm boy named Wilson Bentley did, and he could not stop looking.

Wilson was fascinated by snowflakes, but they melted so fast he could never study them for long. So he attached a camera to a microscope, and on January 15, 1885, he became the first person ever to photograph a single snowflake. Over his lifetime he photographed more than 5,000 of them, and people called him Snowflake Bentley.

His photographs showed the world two amazing things. First, snowflakes almost always have six sides or six points. That is because of the way tiny water molecules join together as they freeze. Second, no two snowflakes he photographed were ever exactly alike.

The Bible asks, Have you entered the storehouses of the snow? Every snowflake is a tiny reminder of how creative God is.

Tonight the year 2026 comes to an end and a brand-new year begins at midnight.

Because the earth spins and different places have different time zones, the new year does not arrive everywhere at the same moment. Some islands in the Pacific Ocean, in the country of Kiribati, are among the very first places to reach midnight. Hours later, families in America are still waiting for theirs.

New Year's Eve is a good time to look back with thankfulness. What did God do for our family this year? What did we learn, where did we go and who did we meet?

It is also a time to look ahead with hope. The Bible says that God's mercies are new every morning. Just like a fresh page in a notebook, a new year is a chance to begin again.