Inspired by an email story he received about a schoolteacher's creative activity to build community in her classroom, Tom invited family members to write down the nicest things they could think of other family members. He consolidated the reflections and created a scroll for each person that contained the beauty everyone saw in them. Tom presented the scrolls to everyone on Christmas morning in 2012. Here's some of the beauty we saw in each other at that time....
Technically, Rebecca was not officially part of the family again when we did this activity in 2012. (Fortunately for Tom and all of us, that would all change a few weeks after the scrolls had been delivered!) However, we and so many others expressed similar sentiments when she turned 60. Here's a link to the website dedicated to her beauty.....
Tom did not include himself in this activity. However, he sometimes received scrolls from students who had received them from him and their classmates. And when he finished teaching at Valley Catholic School in 2006, the student body wrote "The Beauty We See in Mr. Mac" messages and bound them into a book.