Can you guys believe Christmas is only a week away?! Anyone else trying to finish up shopping for loved ones and wrapping all the gifts? Every year I say I’m going to start early, but every year I’m hustling at the last minute to get it all done.

Anyways, one of my favorite things is to sip on peppermint hot chocolate while listening to Christmas music and wrapping gifts. Peppermint and chocolate are one of my favorite flavor combinations and one of my favorite things about the holidays.

I was going to write a quick Instagram post on this feeling, but then I realized that it may be a little more deep-seeded than a quick blurb. I went to a show this weekend. Not a huge show. Just a rinky-dink bar show. A passion of mine is supporting the local music scene, and what better way than to attend shows. Also, a dear friend of mine that I do not see nearly enough invited me.

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to attend the North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference here in Indianapolis. While I knew that I would learn about the latest and greatest in CF management, I was unprepared for the second, more meaningful gift that this experience gave to me:

The gift of community.

In high school, my friend’s mom gave me a tiny pendant she had bought at a yard sale. Among boxes of chipped mugs and old records, she found the pendant that held an even tinier mustard seed inside it. On the back of it, in the silver setting, in writing almost too small to see, it read, “If ye have faith the size of a mustard seed, nothing shall be impossible unto you.”