We usually spend Christmas at home, with at least part of the family celebrating the holiday with us.  When that is the case, we decorate.  We cut a tree on the property about a week before Christmas, then get out all the boxes of decorations and special things we have accumulated over the years.  Before long the house looks and smells like Christmas.

     But when no one is coming, and we ourselves will be gone, we don't do any decorating.  We don't put up a tree.  We don't put up the special things that speak to us of Christmas.  Things look as they usually do around here.

     Although we don't decorate in the usual way, there is one thing we do put up.  Every year for a long time now, some dear friends have sent us a balsam wreath at Christmas.  We hang the wreath in the area where we eat so we can enjoy it.  And even when there is nothing else to remind us of Christmas, the fragrance of the wreath calls the season to mind.

     The sweet odor of the balsam is more than a reminder of Christmas, though.  It is the fragrance of friendship.  For whenever we see the wreath or smell the fragrance, we are reminded of the friends who thought of us and sent it our way.

     The fragrance of friendship comes to us at other times also.  There are so many who do thoughtful things for us through the year.  A call, a card, a letter, a prayer for help.  Little things perhaps, but evidence that somebody cares.  When the days are difficult it makes such a difference to know there are those who want to help carry the load.

     But as I write I wonder if there is a fragrance of friendship in the heart of someone else because of something I have done.  Is there a remembrance of some loving act that lingers in another heart because of me.  Am I a giver, or a receiver only?

     Life is so short.  The opportunities to be kind and loving and thoughtful are so quickly gone.  I would like to be one who when I am gone will be remembered as one who shared the fragrance of friendship with all I know.