Christmas 2009

Psa 8:4
What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

God sent His only son to dwell among men and save them from eternal separation from Him, and it makes my heart heavy each Christmas that I don't dwell on this as much as I believe I should. I get caught up, swept along in, and often even enjoy some of the craziness and materialism that we've allowed Christmas to become, even though all year long I determine not to do that again. I don't think it's wrong to give or receive gifts or have fun fellowship times, but is that what my heart is focused on? I'm still looking for the correct balance.

Rom 7:15
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

I am so thankful for Jesus Christ, the unspeakable gift, the most precious gift ever. May we all focus on Him more...

Luk 2:6
And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.

Luk 2:7
And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Luk 2:8
And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

Luk 2:9
And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.

Luk 2:10
And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people.

Luk 2:11
"For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

Luk 2:12
"And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger."

Luk 2:13
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

Luk 2:14
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!" [fn]

Our Christmas 2009 was going to be a different one. We went into it knowing that we wouldn't be with most of the usual family, which was sad for all of us. That had been our "norm" for several years, and we liked our norm.

I didn't want to be too much of a grump, however, and decided we'd try something new. We made popcorn and cranberry garland for the tree. I remembered someone once saying that this is VERY time consuming, and they were right. If you'd like to do it for your 2010 tree and are working by yourself (and not using cranberries), I'd recommend starting now. It took one very long, full evening with Rachel, Kyle, Elise, and me to make our garland, and we didn't do the back of the tree. But it was a lot of fun, and I see us doing this every year.

Aren't those cranberries beautiful? Start out by making way too much popcorn (like I did) and let it sit out to get stale for a couple of days. That will make it less likely to crumble when you string it on the dental floss.

We all liked our end result, but next time we'll string a lot more cranberries on. If you make it without the cranberries, I've heard you can actually store it from year-to-year. But we like the cranberries on, and now (January) it's hanging in the trees for the birds. I mean for the birds, not for the birds.







Your kitchen will probably end up a popcorn-mess like ours did! Daniel didn't care that the popcorn was stale... he snacked anyway.

The verdict is in. They're goofy.

Remember, use a lot of cranberries! We pulled them right out of the fridge and got started. Oh, but if you have indoor pets, they'll probably want to eat your garland.

Rachel was our resident house decorator this Christmas. She did a great job and had a lot of fun with it.

You can see below that Daniel prefers to hang every ornament touching each other on the same branch.

Yes, they're goofy, too.

Christmas morning "before" and "after" the kids (including Jess!) were up.

Can you guess what was in Elise's stocking?

The game of "Risk" for Kyle.

Elise was surprised with a sewing machine.

Do you think that Jess really didn't know that there were "Hot Tomales" in that box?

Daniel drew pictures for all of us this Christmas.

Rachel got Daniel this old-fashioned Superman lunchbox for Christmas which had a DVD of the old-fashioned Superman movies in it. Daniel told Rachel he'd wanted a lunchbox for his whole life! Well, when it was time for our tradional very large Christmas Day brunch, all Daniel wanted was a baggie of mini-wheats cereal and a Capri Sun juice.

A funny story... it's now January and Daniel's watched his Superman DVD a few times. He was telling me one morning all the cool things that Superman can do (flying, leap over buildings, etc.). He was very into it.

I said, "That's pretty neat, but does Superman love the Lord? Because that would make him really great."

Daniel said, "Yes, he loves the Lord."

I said, "Good, because that's most important."

He said, "Yes, and fighting for justice."

Once we all figured out how to play "Settlers of Catan" we thought it was great!

Well, back to our being loners for Christmas. Our sweet friends, Kent and Lindy, were loners this Christmas, also. Normally they have family here, too, but this year their family was waiting until later to come here so they could watch their kids while Kent and Lindy left the country to adopt a child! Aaahhhh! Pray for them in their travels... we're so excited!

Well we decided we'd be loners together... like on the "Island of Misfit Toys."

Remember... if you're being weird when your picture is taken, be prepared for someone to blog on it. I think Kent's trying to whiten his teeth with mashed potatoes.

So then... Jay and Jan were unexpectedly home alone for Christmas, too. All but one of their kids are out of the house, and they did a get-together before Christmas and had another get-together planned for the 28th of December. But nothing on Christmas! So we welcomed them to our island for the day!

It was a very good, very fun, very loud day. I think we ate, talked, and played games continually. We had snow on the ground, and it was beautiful outside.

Bananagrams is very fun! Yes, you see a proper noun in there, and I don't think those are allowed. Mom, have you tried yours yet? We've heard that Alabama likes this game, too...

And finally, Rachel received the sweetest present from my mom. Grandma sent her a beautiful cedar box that she (mom) had been given upon graduation, and Mom had filled it with treasured old photos of mom's childhood including Rachel's great grandparents, great-great grandparents, and other family. Rachel was in awe and simply speechless that she'd been entrusted with such a collection! This was a box and these were pictures that I had grown up with, and Rachel was the perfect choice to pass them on to!

We took a long walk down Mom's "Memory Lane," and we were thrilled to be there.

The camera card was filling up, of course, so my videos were going to be cut short. You can't say, "Hold that emotional moment while I empty the card!" so I did the best I could. My mom included letters to Rachel with storries about some of the pictures that make them even more valuable! For example, she told Rachel how she would watch her grandmother make herself up for bed each evening, hair and makeup. Mom asked her why she did that. She told her that she wanted to look good in case she died in her sleep!

It was a beautiful treasure to hand over to Rachel, Mom, and it tops the list of favorite things that she's ever been given. Her only disappointment was that you weren't here to hug in person.