Christmas comes but once a year

January 18, 2012

Christmas comes but once a year

The Christmas season was pure joy this year. For a variety of reasons, it has brought me more anxiety than joy in past years. But this year was very different. Oddly enough, I think the key was in really relishing Thanksgiving. As we delved into learning the history in greater depth, I felt a new level of gratitude for God's presence in our lives - not just now, but over centuries. It gave me a renewed sense of what really matters, and playing my 'place in history' the best I can. It really helped set the tone for Christmas as: "Because I have been given much, I too must give."

So, Christmas was great. We packed in as many traditions as we could - caroling, gift making, walking the neighborhood light displays, ding-dong ditching, 12-days, cookies and chowder and Christmas jars. Probably our favorite new tradition was reading Dicken's Christmas Carol around the Christmas tree before bed. What made it not feel overwhelming was that we purposely planned not to plan anything much in advance. We just kind of did things as we had time. It really took the stress off and helped us live in the moment. I can take a lesson from this for the rest of the year. I tend to overplan sometimes :)

The stressful part was getting ready to travel. But it was so worth the effort to go have time with family. Not something we can handle every Christmas but always worth it. Almost all of Nate's family was gathered this year and we got to see all of my siblings (separately). With the unseasonably warm weather (ie no snow - boo hoo) we instead got to go swimming on both Christmas eve and new years eve - non traditional but super fun.

Here's some other highlights we captured on film:

The primary kids had fun with their 'impromptu' nativity play - Natalie was an angel and Lucas was a 'wandering sheep' - he'd already wandered off the stage by this point. This was bittersweet for me since I was released as primary pres. the very next day.

Marzipan cookies take a new creative twist

The kids really got into their sewing projects

Lucas' finished project - a gift for his nursery leader

Our first evening in Idaho we were given the royal treatment by the Young family, complete with waiters, cooks, entertainers who played music and told jokes, and the whole family gave us a spiritual feast as they recited 'The Living Christ' they have been working on memorizing this year.