Good evening to all! With it mid-December, I am starting to feel pretty jolly and I hope you have similar feelings as well. I am excited about this week’s Thursday Rundown so let’s get started.

First Place – Sloan’s daycare, Oxford Children’s Academy, is always offering fun events and community building activities. To celebrate its birthday (which was on Dec. 11), OCA challenged families to make a video commemorating the milestone. If you know me well, it will come as no surprise that I couldn’t resist. Sloan, Sidney, and I sat down and recorded a video from the heart. It was announced today that we won first place (and a $50 tuition credit)! To watch the video, click here. As we reflect on our many blessings this holiday season, one thing that sticks out is how fortunate we are to send Sloan to such a loving daycare.

As part of Oxford Children’s Academy birthday festivities, a photo booth was set up. We are so pleased to send Sloan to OCA and completely honored to have won 1st place in the video competition!

Sloan’s Santa Saga – As I mentioned last week, Sloan has Santa issues. This past weekend, we tried to make some progress with her phobia. We attended a delicious Breakfast with Santa event put on by the Knights of Columbus at St. Andrew. Unfortunately, the tears still flowed when we put her on Santa’s lap. But, there was a bright spot (other than the food)! The Knights of Columbus must have some type of “in” with Santa because he brought Mrs. Claus with him. It turned out that Sloan loved his better half. At the start of the breakfast, Mrs. Claus was guiding Sloan around the beautiful tree that was set up in our church’s community center, pointing out different ornaments. By the end of the breakfast, the roles were reversed! Sloan was taking Mrs. Claus by the hand and excitedly pointing at what was hanging from the branches.

Sloan didn’t warm up to Santa at the St. Andrew Knights of Columbus pancake breakfast but she did really enjoy Mrs. Claus.

Christmas Music Program – Last week, the 2nd graders at Palmetto Bays Elementary School staged their holiday music performance. Wanting to show our support, Sloan and I surprised Mrs. Reser a couple minutes prior to the concert. Sid was so happy to see us! Throughout the performance, Sloan danced her heart out and tried to rush the stage. It was pretty cute. Sloan will have her chance to be the center of attention tomorrow as OCA will hold its Christmas performance.

Sloan couldn’t be contained at the Palmetto Bays 2nd grade Christmas program! She just wanted to dance and rush the stage.

Another Holiday Comic Laugh – I can’t help but share these funny Christmas-related comics so I hope you don’t mind. Poor Santa, little does he know about the evolution of his image over the years. I just hope Amazon was able to exchange his purchase for something that will be a little more suitable for Christmas Eve.

Santa was definitely “off the mark” on this.

Interesting Articles – I wanted to share a couple of interesting articles I read last night. The first one is from the New York Times and tells the hilarious story of a Utah government worker who had an email disaster. Intending to send a holiday potluck email to her small unit of workers in the Utah Department of Corrections, she accidentally sent it to all 22,000 government workers in the state! The “reply all” responses that ensued are hilarious!

The second article was sent to me by Lindsay Hickman, a current grad student at CCU. The story describes a near-impossible assignment given by a professor at Missouri State University. The faculty member, holding the belief that it is much harder to go viral than people think (I agree!), challenged his students to do just that. He thought there was no chance that his students could succeed in reaching 7,000 people, let alone 7.75 million. To find out what this group did to get so many views, click here.

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It is crazy how fast everything is going. My last day at work for the year will be next Friday! Speaking of a year that is quickly coming to an end, be sure to make these last 18 days of 2018 count. Hope you all have a great weekend. Don’t Blink.