Family Christmas Pictures

Here's a photo recap of our family Christmas get-togethers. I always think I have way too many pictures, but then I go back through them and I see that I haven't captured many dear faces and special moments that I wish I had. We truly felt God's abundant blessings in our time spent with family for the holidays!

Thankful Thursday #1

(Coloring by Erin)

Well, it's easy to have something to be thankful for today.

Lately, I've been listening to this song by Point of Grace. It's not a Christmas song, per se, but I think the message is perfect, especially here in the first couple verses.

Infinite Deity, humbly enframed
In a mortal and breakable body You came
To rescue our souls from the depths they were in
Because, in spite of, to cover my sin.

Master and servant together in one
Come to redeem what our hearts had undone
Savior of all come to gather His kin
Because of, in spite of, to cover my sin.

Holy, unbreakable, infinite God,
Ever unchanging in all that you are
Light of the world and the sun and the stars
You are I Am and I am because You are.

(Scott Phillips, Because You Are)

Christmas To Us

Today may only be the 24th, but we had Christmas morning here. It was such a fun morning! A nice breakfast....

some fun stocking stuffers...

and my favorite part, The Blessings Box.

Through the past few weeks we've been filling this box with slips of paper on which we've written the blessings or gifts that God has given us this year. We've never had it be so full! By the time we got done reading all the slips, my only thought was, "Well, who needs presents after that?!"

Of course, there were a few more presents, and here are a couple highlights. Erin's little Heffalump finally got a mother. (He'd been asking for one.)

Matt got a set of remote-control bumper cars. Total family fun!

Now we're hitting the road to do two more Christmas celebrations over the next couple days. The fun is just beginning!

The Mailing

This morning my clerical staff and I got our Christmas cards ready to mail. If you get a card that has a return address label stuck on upside down, or a stamp slightly askew, please understand. I did my best at quality control, but we were having fun, too.

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

We started a new tradition tonight by have a Jesus birthday cake. The kids loved it! (Well, duh, I guess that's a given, considering it's CAKE!)

As I head off to bed, I'm thinking of a song we've sung in church.

How deep the Father's love for us!
How vast beyond all measure!
That He would give His only Son
to make a wretch His treasure.

How awesome to remember that Jesus came to live with and rescue those who were His enemies (Romans 5:10). The truth of Christmas makes God's gracious gift so much more meaningful.

My Favourite Christmas Music

I got cybertagged by my cousin, Julia, to write about my favourite Christmas music. It was a game of tag which came from her friend in Malaysia where they spell "favorite" with a "u" which makes it look so classy, don't ya think? Anyway, I've never been cybertagged before, and I've had a lot of fun thinking about the topic.

My first thought is to go with Drew Barrymore's line in Ever After, "I could no sooner choose a favorite star in the heavens." I love almost all Christmas music as long as they don't take a traditional carol and make it way too groovy. Amy Grant, Martina McBride, and Point of Grace are my main Christmas staples, but there are many others I enjoy. What makes a good song to me is the lyrics, so I love it when the words of a song are clever and make you think about truth in a new way, like Point of Grace's One King..."One king held the frankincense; one king held the myrrh; one king held the purest gold; and one King held the hope of the world." It seems like a lot of my Christmas favorites deal with the idea of Christ being our hope. Love Has Come by Amy Grant, and Let There be Light and Hope is Born Again by Point of Grace are good ones in this department. Our church choir is singing an old hymn as part of our Christmas worship service tomorrow night, and I think it fits all categories of a good song. The message is profound and stated in a poetic way, and the harmonies are gorgeous, so it's probably going down as my new favorite for this year.

Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond All Splendour

Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,
all for love's sake becamest poor;
thrones for a manger didst surrender,
sapphire paved courts for stable floor.
Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,
all for love's sake becamest poor.

Thou who art God beyond all praising,
all for love's sake becamest man;
stooping so low, but sinners raising,
heav'nward by thine eternal plan.
Thou who wast God beyond all praising,
all for love's sake becamest man.

Thou who art Love beyond all telling,
Savior and King, we worship Thee.
Emmanuel within us dwelling,
make us what Thou wouldst have us be.
Thou who art Love beyond all telling,
Savior and King, we worship Thee.

Now I tag Team Smith in Africa (hopefully, they'll be able to connect sometime soon) and Bridget, who seems sort of musical. Hope they have as much fun as I had thinking about this topic.

Blog? What Blog?

So I haven't been the most faithful blogger for the past couple weeks...something had to give. Hopefully, I'm back now.

We got our Christmas tree today...yippee! It's all decorated now and gorgeous. I think I suffer from Christmas Tree Lot Proportion Distortion Disorder (CTLPDD). No matter what the little measuring device says, I cannot judge the size of a tree when it's under the wide, blue sky. We get our trees home and either have to lop off two feet from the top to make it stand up in our living room or stand back and wish it were just a little closer to the ceiling. Our tree is definitely on the large side this year, probably in reaction to our tree being on the small side last year. I was looking for "bigger", and BIGGER I got. After losing count of how many hundreds of lights I was having to put on, I decided that it was way too big, so next year we'll be looking for "smaller"...which means, of course, that Erin will be able to put the star on the top while standing flatfooted on the floor.

As I was stringing the lights on the tree, I was listening to a Point of Grace Christmas CD and ended up hitting repeat on the song "Let There Be Light" about twenty times...

"Let there be light!
Let it shine bright!
Piercing the darkness with dazzling white.
Hope for the hopeless was born on that night,
when God sent His Son,
He said, 'Let there be light!' "

The joy of this time of year just seems to grow deeper with each passing year!

I'll try to post some pictures later...I'm not that far back into the blog yet.