this Christmas

This year my husband and I hosted Christmas in our home.  It was fun, exhausting, and fulfilling.

The kids in their new pajamas.

Gabriel enjoying his new gift.

Mama/baby

It was fun to open up my home for such a special celebration!

Christmas candy: peanut brittle, peppermint patties, and cookie dough truffles.

Concord Grape Royal ':mocktail" (Alton Brown's recipe)

A (belated) Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

needy

My two-year-old daughter came out of her bedroom on Sunday morning wearing a scowl on her face.

"Kyle say me sick," she said indignantly.  She was positively grumpy at the suggestion that she was not in glowing, perfect health.  What on earth would make anyone believe she was ill?

Never mind that she'd been up the night before with a fever.  Never mind that she was coughing, sniffling, that her eyes were watery.  Never mind the red smudges under those big brown eyes.  She was a mess.

When we told her she couldn't go to church that day, she cried.  My girl loves going to church, seeing her friends, attending her "big girl class."  She's always excited to hear it's a church day.

I'm hoping it isn't mostly about the clothes.

All morning long, she insisted she was fine.  Anyone with a pair of eyes could have known, just to look at her, that she was under the weather.  But no, she didn't need to nap.  She didn't want a drink.  She wouldn't stay on the couch and rest.  She was just fine, thank you very much.

By the time lunch was over, her fatigue was undeniable; she could hardly hold her head up, she was so weary.  Even so, we had to absolutely insist that she lay down in her bed for a while.  And such insistence was met with another flood of tears.  She just couldn't believe it - or maybe she just couldn't admit it.

She had a need.  But even in her neediness, she refused to accept the truth.

She was fine.  Just fine.

Friends, I believe this is a picture of how we ourselves can be.

We too have a need.  We are desperate, failing, completely unable to do it alone. We don't want to accept our weakness - our inability - our need.  Eyes watering, choking back our coughs, nearly unable to lift our heads in weariness, we insist that we are fine.  Just fine.  We don't need help.

We don't need a Savior.

But we are so wrong.

We have sinned - each and every one of us.  No exceptions.  We all come stained with sin, sullied and stinking with the stuff we've chosen to do, say, and think.  We so desperately need a Redeemer, someone who can lift our burden and wash us clean.

We cannot remove that burden on our own.  And we cannot purify ourselves.  We are desperate, failing, completely unable to do it alone.  We are needy.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said,  "A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes - and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent."

The season of Advent has come and gone.  But the advent, the coming of One long-awaited and desperately needed, remains.   He has come, and we never again will have to face life alone.

So rejoice, my friends and let us never deny our need.  We must remember that this is the meaning of Christmas - and it extends far beyond a few weeks in December.

We needed Him.  God sent Him.  He came to seek and save those who were lost (Luke 19:10).

Now that's something worth celebrating.

decking the halls is a family affair

Christmas in Egypt

Last night was our church's Christmas musical.  It was so much fun, and the kids all did great!  Kyle nailed his lines, Benjamin was wonderful, and Elise was just about the sweetest Toddler Jesus you ever saw.  Here's a photo of my three performers in costume after the program last night - I couldn't resist sharing...

the baby's Christmas stocking

Let me say this again: I am not crafty. At all. It's true: I resist crafts like the plague. I am not a craft-lover (not that there's anything wrong with that). It's just not me.

But there is one thing I've done for each one of my babies, usually in the months before they're born. I have made each and every one of them a Christmas stocking.

It started even before I was born. I believe the story goes that my husband's aunt made him a personalized felt stocking, complete with various felt shapes, beading, and his name, as well as the year of his birth. Then when Jeff and I planned to spend our lives together, his mother made one for me. It was decorated in much the same way, and included my name in gold glittering letters.

(our collection of stockings in December 2010)

So as soon as I could get my hands on another plain felt stocking, I started working on one for the new (yet-to-be-born, of course) little one. I have some simple paper templates I drew when I made my first stocking, and I still trace with them before I cut the shapes out of colored pieces of felt. These I paste on with tacky glue.

After everything has dried, it's time for a needle, thread, and beading. I also have some shiny sequins and shimmery snowflakes. I decorate the stocking however my heart desires -giving the snowman features and buttons, the angel a songbook, crown, and face, the reindeer a red nose, and the Christmas tree its ornamentation.

After that, the only thing remaining is adding a name (and with it, a year). So while our baby's stocking hangs by the fireplace with the others, it alone is nameless. But soon (Lord willing)...soon, we shall meet our newest family member, give him or her a name...and then, at long last, I can finish my little one's stocking.

Still, for the time being it waits, patient...patient...

Elise Navidad!

name that song

Big Mama had a post about her favorite Christmas songs, and I thought it would be , worthwhile to do something similar. Here's the deal: I'll share mine, then you share yours. Fair enough, yes?

Ah, Christmas music. There's really nothing else like it, is there? Nostalgic, poignant. Happy, wistful, and yes, sometimes sad. Personally, I try to hold off on Christmas music until after Thanksgiving. Well, let's make that until after Thanksgiving dinner. After that, it's a delirious festival of yuletide tunes, up until right around New Year's Day, when I screech to a halt, feeling hung over with the heaviness of evergreen branches and holly berries.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Because right now, this moment, my household is newly (re)awakened to the beauty (ethereal and otherwise) of Christmas music. And so, without further ado... not in any particular order, here are some of my dearest, most beloved Christmas songs. At the moment, anyway.

1) Precious Promise by Steven Curtis Chapman.
Do you know this song? Tender, honest, and poignant, it carries the fragile beauty of what was perhaps God's most "majestic whisper."

2) O Holy Night - covered by Selah. Breathtaking!

3) Joseph's Lullaby by MercyMe. A few years ago, hearing this song for the first time, I was reduced to tears - I could hardly see to drive home.

4) Going Home For Christmas by Steven Curtis Chapman. This song always makes me think of my Grandma Oyer. The bridge makes me cry...every single time I hear it.

5) Christmas Offering by Casting Crowns. Yes!

6) Christmas Is All In The Heart by Steven Curtis Chapman. This wonderful season is not about having tons of money, the perfect tree, or opening presents. It's about "the love heaven gave" on that holy night. Here is a beautiful reminder of that truth.

7) O Come, O Come Emmanuel - covered by Selah. Hauntingly beautiful, the longing is palpable. May all Israel find her Messiah.

8) Breath of Heaven (Mary's Song) by Amy Grant. So vulnerable and honest. I had the privilege of performing this song as a teenager, and it's meant a lot to me ever since.

9) Mary Did You Know. God's own Son, clothed in human skin. Incredible.

10) Worthy Is the Lamb That was Slain/Hallelujah by Handel, as performed by Twila Paris (and company) for the New Young Messiah album. Christmas? Easter? Does it matter? The line grows blurry for me here, because it's all part of the same amazing, beautiful, heartrending story. He came, He died, He rose. He is worthy!

Have Merry Christmastime!

all decked out!

comfy, cozy Christmas jammies!

Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!

snapshots of Christmas

Kyle reading part of the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke...

Owen cheesing in his new coat. It's nice for the kid to have something new: after all, he does have two big brothers.


Owen loving on his new bunny, Brownie. Jeff's parents have made something special from Build-A-Bear for each of the boys, and now it's Owen's turn. He really lit up when he heard their voices coming from Brownie's paw!
My guys joining forces on my brother-in-law's Rock Band game.

Playing checkers...

Rejoice!

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

~Isaiah 9:6

Merry Christmas! Rejoice, for Immanuel...God with us... has come!

why I cried when we put up the tree

I suppose it's safe to say that I was a little emotional this year.

Extra-emotional, even. Jeff kept looking me over, and grinning. Yes, the tears flowed freely this year.

Decorating the Christmas tree is always a special time for our family. We have a special, very particular order in which we put on our ornaments. After the tree is upright and the lights and garland (when we can find it, which isn't the case this year!) are on, Jeff and I hang our "Our First Christmas Together"ornament from 1997.

Then we pull out each of the boys' "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornaments. Each is silver, and each is inscribed with the child's name and birth year. Benjamin hangs his sweet baby rattle, Kyle hangs his Mother Goose book, and Owen has a tiny silver-and-blue baby shoe. It's like a re-telling of how our family became what it is. Two hearts joined as one...Ben...Kyle...Owen. I wonder what sweet silver ornament will join the telling in 2010.

There's something so sentimental for me about taking out all those beloved trinkets. Each one has a story. The clay, white-and-azure "Noel" we found at the Renaissance Festival in Kansas City. The potted daisy my very first best friend painted for me when we were in kindergarten. My snowman collection. The Snowbabies Jeff's parents gave my boys, each of which bears the simple, true words "From God."

But I think it was the music that really got me.

Those words. Those tried and true words.

"For Unto Us a Child is Born."
"Emmanuel, God with us."
"What Child is This?"

And one of our CDs has a reading of the birth of Jesus by a child: it undoes me every single time I hear it. Those familiar, unbelievably precious words.

These words speak the truth about the meaning of Christmas. It isn't about the gifts. It isn't about the candy. It isn't about the warm fuzzies, or the lights. It's not even about family.

It's about a promise.

Oh what a precious promise
Oh what a gift of love
The wait is finally over
And the time has finally come

For the God who made this world
To draw back the curtain
And unveil His passion for the heart of man
Oh what a precious Promise
Lying in a stable in Bethlehem.

Oh what a precious Promise
Lying in a stable in Bethlehem

~"Precious Promise" by Steven Curtis Chapman

family

My family is...






....from God.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. ~James 1:17