Recapping the holidays

Well I looked to see when I last posted and am so ashamed! Christmas has come and gone - we did not see any snow. As a matter of fact you could have been in a t-shirt. Obviously Santa and Rudolph were on their game Christmas Eve - the foggy night was no challenge for them. And I'm sure the reindeer food we spread out across the front yard helped them find us as well.

It's already January 2nd and I have so many pictures to post so here we go!

First stop is the Saenger theater where we enjoy our favorite Christmas tradition 3 years running. That's right it's The Nutcracker. This year we played one of the toys - an adorable Gingerbread girl. Some of our friends were clowns and mice. What a special treat on opening night when a very handsome "friend-boy" came to see the girls perform. He even brought flowers!!



We enjoyed a couple of Christmas parties with some special friends. We made gingerbread houses at Millie's and baked and decorated cookies and cupcakes with Analiese. These girls know how to have a good time!!


We threw in two Christmas musicals at church, caroling and progressive dinner/camping trip the weekend before Christmas..

Finally it's Christmas Eve/Day. We enjoyed lots of great food on Christmas day thanks to Granny's wonderful cooking. We followed up with a couple of leftover meals that were just as delicious. On Saturday, we had another wonderful belated Christmas celebration with more family and enjoyed more great food thanks to my awesome husband who cooks as good as his mother!

We celebrated birthday #8 for a special little girl with lunch leftovers from the day before - the jambalya was even better the next day - and also had some yummy Red Velvet cake. We continued to celebrate over the next few days leading up to New Year's Eve where we have our annual Mexican Bowling night (we eat at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants - they are all our favorites but the birthday girl chose Los Tres Amigos this year - and as a special treat our cousins spent the night. We shot off some fireworks early. We wanted to make sure the girls enjoyed some in case they didn't make it to midnight. We were in a PJs at midnight but went out and blew our horns and shot off our party popper streamers and then we went to bed. The next morning we enjoyed yet another fine meal - thanks again honey - your pancakes are the best!! The weather was beautiful and I got a few shots of the girls outside playing on the tireswing. What a wonderful way to end the year and begin a new one.


Well I think this may have caught me up for now. I hope to join a new project for this year - it will be a first for me. 365 Project to take a photo everyday of the year. I love this idea and since I have a new camera I should put it to good use.

Merry Census/Missing Christmas - Part 1

The weeks just keep getting busier. Mandatory parent meetings for school related activities, extra choir rehearsal to prepare for the Christmas musical, along with everyday chaos and a "small" construction project yet to be finished.

Every year I tell myself that I'm not going to get caught up in the busyness of Christmas only to be disappointed later when it's almost over and I wonder where the time went. Am I only observing the season? I have good intentions of keeping my focus on the true meaning. Have I really stopped to reflect on why we even have this holiday?

What about that first Christmas. There are some amazing similarities about what happened then and what goes on in our world today.

For starters, Luke 2 tell us that there had been a decree issued that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. So everyone had to return to their own town to register. So there was going to be some traveling. Which brings us to the town of Bethlehem.

What was perhaps a quiet little town, it was now full of people everywhere. Busy people. People consumed with all kinds of things. Some things important, some not. There was family to see, old friends from the neighborhood to look up. There may have even been those set up at the city gate (tail-gating) just to see who came home. There was also money to be made with all of the out-of-town guests. Shops stocking up on their goods hoping to sell their treasures. I think it is safe to say this town was a-buzzing.

Now Joseph had to take Mary with him to go and register. They had travel about 70 miles. A long way when traveling by donkey express. They were exhausted. Don't know what kind of "traffic" they may have encountered along the way but I doubt that was nothing compared to being very pregnant and riding on a donkey. They set out to look for a place to stay.

The innkeeper was probably in high stress mode - preoccupied with taking care of his business. We don't know if he was rude, unconcern about Mary's condition or if he even knew she was pregnant. He was just busy.

Just like we sometimes get. We become consumed with activities. Things that keep us running the roads kind of busy. We've got shopping to do, Christmas banquets to attend, office parties, school activities, dance recitals, decking the halls, and the house and the yard, Christmas cards to mail, Christmas cards to read, cookies to bake, menus to plan, and on and on and on. All these things competing for our time.

Back to Joseph and Mary. They had no place to go. The baby's on the way. All they know is there's no room. They find a quiet little place. Not the best of surroundings, but a place to bring this precious baby into the world. I'm sure it's not what Mary had planned. She probably wanted her mother to be with her there to offer support. Perhaps Joseph being a carpenter had made a beautiful cradle for their child. But now she finds herself there in a barn about to have her first child, all by herself. I know Joseph was there, but let's face it she had to do most of it by herself. It wasn't what she had planned.

Sometimes my Christmas's don't always turn out like I hope they would. When the day is over and things have quieted down, and I'm sitting among the clutter of wrapping paper, boxes and ribbon did I miss it? Did I miss Christmas?

The house that Mandy built...

Today we had children's choir rehearsal (musical tomorrow night!) followed by the children's christmas party. After the kid's ate lunch we had a "build-a-gingerbread house" contest. Here's Mandy and her team (Ethan, Brandy and Garret) building one. Pretty cute... they came in 2nd. Unfortunately, some of the others didn't make it to the judge's table. The kids had a great time and got a good sugar high too! Thanks to Ms. Marcy, Ms. Rhonda, and Ms. Rachel, Ms. Candy and Ms. Patti for all of their help. After the children's christmas party we dashed off to ballet for our Nutcracker rehearsal. We were pretty tired when we got home around 4:00pm, but since Mandy had not seen Jake all day (he was still in bed when we left this morning) she got her second wind and talked him into going out back and throwing the frisbee with her. What a great brother!

'Tis the season...

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