If you’ve made it this far on my fast trip through November and December events, you deserve a prize! I’m wrapping up the recap with this post and resuming normal posting (whatever that means) in the new year.
The Christmas season is overwhelmingly full of blessings. I’m not sure how I will accomplish this, but I thought I’d try to condense down the happiness to my favorite five things about our celebration this year. Wish me luck!
Worship – That sweet little baby in the manger who came and saved us from our sins is the number one reason we love Christmas, and we have so many wonderful opportunities to worship Him.
From Christmas caroling to shut-ins
to the Children’s Christmas Eve service
where Luke and Ben had the privilege of playing pre-service and offering violin pieces
to the beautiful candlelight service and festive Christmas Day worship … every moment of Christmas worship is a joy!!
People – We were blessed with so many wonderful opportunities to celebrate the season with friends and family near and far. The fun kicked off with a get together with the area pastors and their wives.
Our tradition is to have a white elephant gift exchange. We’ve learned over the years that the guys and the girls gifts should be kept separate because pastors tend to get much joy from exchanging VERY strange gifts (translate = books and large wrenches).
We also enjoyed a celebration with our church and school staff. We had lots of fun gussing the names of Christmas songs from their drawings. How many can you guess?
Here’s a photo of most of our staff from Christmas Eve. What an awesome group of people we are privileged to serve with!!
We wrapped up our December party season by hosting dinner for good friends including the Wyoming Arndts. What a joy!
Family – We made the most of our time together. Our gift exchange was capped off with a fun scavenger hunt of sorts for the last few gifts. We made a trip to Mankato to see “The Adventures of Tintin” and eat out at Buffalo Wild Wings. And we enjoyed new games of Rory’s Story Cubes and The Journeys of Paul.
We also celebrated with our extended family – video Skyping on Chrismas Eve with Sallie’s family in Mississippi and enjoying special time with Kevin’s parents as well.
New Technology – If you know me at all, you know that I’m always excited by new technology, and this Christmas held many surprises in this area. I was gifted with iPad-related gadgetry. I am now the happy owner of an iRig Mic and a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard (which I’m using to type this blog post)! I’m very pleased with the performance of both, and my iPad is becoming more and more my go-to computing device.
Gifts – The joy of giving was a big theme this Christmas, and we were blessed to be on the receiving end of so many thoughtful gifts. For our family we especially enjoyed giving our family Christmas photo program, written by Kevin and Stanley. It’s a drag and drop photo creation tool.
Have fun with it, and have a very Happy New Year!!!
