winter

While Sam starts construction on an igloo...

the sun shines through ...

but winter is all too familiar around here and summer terribly distant...

thankful...

...to a gracious, generous Heavenly Father who has given us people in our lives to celebrate what we have.

and today I read this and I don't feel quite as weird...

Ann Voskamp writes this.

Paul "Sam" Bunyan

Armed with work gloves and a large stick, he's ready to do things.

gifts

It is only slightly ironic that on the holiday we supposedly celebrate the best and most sacrificial gift ever [Jesus], we spend so much time giving gifts to each other. Not many give each other gifts like years ago, when Christmas was the special occasion in which to receive the bare necessities: this year's pair of long underwear and mittens.

I might be fitted with a "scrooge" tag, except that I do not hate being with other people and I do like spending money on gifts that I know will make another person smile. But when Christmas is only about exchanging gifts at various places with varying guidelines, we've missed the point. How often do we get together to "celebrate" Christmas with just food and gifts with a brief prayer of thanks for the food?

And by Christmas Eve or Day, the Christmas music has been repeated in every genre available for a minimum of six weeks. The owners of their gaudy displays of lights on any given road or street are ready to strip them down no later than Christmas afternoon and shave a few dollars off the electric bill and the Christmas trees, that arrived on the lots in the middle of November, are parked on the curbs, stripped of their glory, waiting for the landfill by December 26.

Are we really celebrating the event of God coming to earth in human skin when the Christmas parties and Christmas programs are checked off the list by the first week in December, a good two and a half weeks before the actual holiday? So how do we celebrate the days before and the day of?

I could go on. But upon the event of having children the last few years, I have begun to think about all this. I love to give them gifts, but why do we give gifts to each other to celebrate Jesus' birthday. It would be a little odd to give gifts all around to celebrate any of our birthdays. No, we give gifts to the one whose birthday is celebrated. We give them things that please them.

So, on the celebration of Jesus birthday, we give gifts to everyone but Jesus. Oh sometimes, we think of giving Him something that would please Him in the form of some charity. A few dollars here and there as a supplement to our gifts to each other...to celebrate Jesus birthday. Hmmm...

After the aforementioned discussion with Mark, I asked the kids this morning, what we should give for Christmas. One idea, I suggested, was to support an kid at an orphanage in Haiti where Priya's teacher's daughter spent some time. It was mentioned on her weekly school bulletin last week and Kristen actually came to Priya's school to tell the kids about her time in Haiti. 

That sounded good to Priya. "Let's give some money to help a kid in Haiti who doesn't have a home," she said. I suggested another idea too and she thought it would be great to do both.

And whether it's because he isn't always tuned in or his hearing is actually impaired, Sam though we were on another wavelength. "Buy a kid?" he asked. Fifty dollars, I explained, is not usually enough to buy a kid. Anneka was confident there was room on the other couch for a kid to sleep. [Poor kid, our current sleeping arrangments have been such that she doesn't even know that normal kids at the very least have their own bed, some even their own rooms. But then we've never intended to give anyone the impression that we are anywhere near normal.]

We haven't come up with the perfect gift yet, needless to say. But we'll keep looking for an opportunity. An opportunity to celebrate Jesus birthday and to give Him something that would please Him. 

I guess we wouldn't really be opposed to opening our other couch if that would please Jesus on His birthday.

a few of my favorite things...

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes, unfortunately are not included on the list due to the large amount of Spray N' Shout required to get them white again after any of my children would have worn them. But here are some others things that do and don't make my list...

a few of my favorites...

1. fresh chopped onion, jalepenos, tomato and cilantro with salt sugar and lime juice on tortilla chips

2. the smell of clothes dried on the clothesline in a stiff wind

3. freshly bathed children

4. walks in the dark when the stars are out

a few of my least favorite

1. clothing coordinates ( i.e., collared sweatshirts with an applique of a bird or animal with one color that matches the slacks)

2. frozen pizza and boxed macaroni and cheese

3. mall shopping

4. making conversation with strangers

To be continued..what else can be added to this list?

I am at once a physician, a citizen and a woman, and I am not willing to stand aside and allow the concept of expendable human lives to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged, and the planned have the right to live.

-Mildred Jefferson, the first African-American woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School and helped found the National Right to Life Committee

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 Wearing her hat from Aunt Rachel, Ellie looks as her lemon cupcake with the candle that was too heavy. She enjoyed the raspberry on top most.

After the raspberry was gone, she had a few licks of frosting and crumbled the rest.

Celebrating last night in honor of Becca and Ellie, there was mom's famous angel food.