What Is Your Favorite Personal Christmas Story?

Every year, for as long as I can remember, when I was living under my mother’s roof, I would wake up to a Christmas gift on the end of my bed.

It was always something that required time, such as a jigsaw puzzle, or puzzle of some other sort, or a book of puzzles, or a story to read.

It was an excellent way to keep us all busy in the early morning without waking up mum & dad the moment we were up.

Despite trying to stay up late to catch who it was putting the gift there each Christmas, I was never successful. I’m pleased about that, as it remains a particularly memorable Christmas ritual as a result of its magic
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As an adult, I continue that tradition for anyone that will wake up in our home on Christmas morning, regardless of their age.

"Why is there anything at all, and not simply nothing?

The Miracle of a little grain of Sand

TEST IT for yourself. Try for a moment to imagine "nothing" --in other words, absolute nothingness, not even a kind of darkness or a great emptiness--no: really, absolutely, nothing. Nothing, nothing! Not even thinkly. Simply nothing.

Bet you don't succeed! The philosopher Leibniz once said that there is only one great question in the world:

"Why is there anything at all, and not simply nothing?

The fact is, the one thing we actually simply cannot imagine--namely, nothing--is the one thing that should be self evident. The normal thing to assume would be that there is simply nothing, and there's an end to it.

But in fact there is something. We know this with absolute certainty. And even if there were only a single tiny grain of sand and nothing else--even that would be an incredible miracle. For one single tiny grain of sand alone would destroy "nothingness".

There must be someone there who has uttered his great "Yes" to everything that exists, who has willed that "something" should exist and not "nothing" instead.