Merry Christmas!

(Sherri, Santa and Me)

There were lots of plans for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but sickness was not in the plan.  It came anyway.  Boo!  We did our best to celebrate, but it was hard, knowing that half the family was feeling lousy.  I didn't take many pictures this year of the big day.  Here are a few from Christmas week.  Yes, I've adopted the lovely tradition of celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas, that begin on Christmas Day.  So, Christmas is still happening here...

"Only he who has experienced it can believe

what the love of Jesus Christ is."

Bernard of Clarivaux

I've imagined this table setting since I started that table runner months ago.  It is my first completed quilting project and it exceeded all my expectations.  I love it!

Decorating the tree at Micah's place.

Eggnog ice-cream from the leftover egg nog.

PEACE

Sights...Words...Tastes...Experiences

 from the Fourth Week of Advent

The fourth candle is lit.

Time with people I love.

"The being with is always the gift, 

not merely the doing for."   

Ann Voskamp

I did it!  Holiday crunch challenge at the Y.  Twenty workouts...

Poppy Seed Bread, Molasses Cookies and Rocky Road Fudge

The last shopping list!

Advent Challenge- As you make your ordinary preparations

today, shopping, cleaning, baking, traveling - breathe a 

silent prayer, asking God to clear the way, turning your

secular tasks into something sacred.

"Holly (or before the seventeenth century, "holy tree") is strongly associated with the season of Advent and Christmas.  It's bright red berries have been seen as celebrating the joy of the Virgin at bearing the Christ child, and also as a symbol of the drops of blood from the body of Jesus at Calvary."   - from Advent and Christmas Wisdom

Homemade vanilla extract for friends.

Carolina Wray Christmas Show

Christmas Eve

"Christmas is fast approaching.  And now that Christ

has aroused our seasonal expectations,

 he'll soon fulfill them all."

Saint Augustine

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Putting together Blessing Bags for the Womens Shelter

Decorating Christmas ornaments

"Lord, I am like to mistletoe,

Which has no root and cannot grow

Or prosper, but by that same tree

It clings about: so I by thee."

Robert Herrick

JOY

Sights...Words...Tastes...Experiences

 from the Third Week of Advent

I'm learning how to do something pretty.

Ordinary driveway beauty.

"The message of Christmas is that this world's a mess and we can never save ourselves from ourselves and we need a Messiah.  For unto us a child is born."                     

                                                                         Ann Voskamp

# Light the World - Jesus worshipped through song and so can you.

"We were made to worship- our internal circuitry wired to worship. Every moment you live, you live bowed to something.  And if you don't choose God, you'll bow down to something else." 

                                                                         Ann Voskamp

Who has the biggest sprinkle collection?  This girl!

Pre-party kitchen.

Wray Family Christmas Party

"It is advent again. Be alert, be alert, so that you will be able to recognize your Lord in your husband, your wife, your parents, your children, your friends, your teachers, but also in all that you read in the daily papers. The Lord is coming, always coming.  Be alert to his coming.  When you have ears to hear and eyes to see, you will recognize Him at any moment of your life.  Life is Advent: life is recognizing the coming of the Lord."

                                                           Henri Nouwen

"Christmas is often seen as a season of excess.  What it ought to be is a poignant season of remembrance.  The point of all the food and song and gifts is not some hedonistic, once a year immersion in material over-indulgence.  The point is to put flesh and expression to joy.  If we lose sight of the Christ's child's coming, if we forget the heavenly joy we are trying to embody, then Christmas can easily become a season of excess.  But when the Incarnation is at its heart, then every song, every special meal, every planned event becomes a pageant in which the drama of the heavenly story is lived out."

                         Sally Clarkson - The Life Giving Home

LOVE

Sights...Words...Tastes...Experiences

 from the Second Week of Advent

"The birth of the child into the darkness of the world made 

possible not just a new way of understanding life,

 but a new way of living it."

Frederick Buechner

#Light the World- Jesus Ministered to Children and So Can You

Lighting the Love candle at dinner

These two would like some dinner too, please.

Have I mentioned how much I love the chalk marker that Kenzie gave her dad for his birthday?  He regularly draws pictures and writes notes to me on the bathroom mirror.

Pizza night before trimming the tree.

What a blessing to have three of the kids here to help.

"You have as much laughter as you have faith."

Martin Luther

Gold coins ready to pass out to everyone I see on St. Nicholas Day.

Early morning quiet.

" It is no use for you to attempt to sow out of an empty basket,

 for that would be sowing nothing but wind." 

Spurgeon 

My advent scripture placed in a location where I see it often.

#Light the World - Jesus Fed the Hungry and So Can You

Christmas Carol with Dad, Yvonne and Sherri

Christmas Party cooking at Cindy's house.

Love this sweet lady!

Dad carving the roast beast!

"How would your perspective on the dailyness of life change

if you could see that "here" is holy?

Ann Voskamp

The traditional Christmas carrot cake, with a ton of frosting.

Well, it is the best part.

"A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes...

and is completely dependent on the fact that the 

door of freedom has to opened from the outside,

is not a bad picture of Advent."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer