Christmas at Home

After a few weeks in the sunny south, we arrived home two weeks before Christmas.  Having left the day after Thanksgiving, I had not been able to decorate the house for the Christmas holidays (I love decorating for Christmas)!  I decided that as  soon  as we got back home, the bins were getting lugged out of storage, and the tree, lights, garlands, and etc., were coming out and resuming their places.  Thus, last Monday afternoon, we pulled into our driveway, unpacked our belongings from the trailer and headed out to find “the perfect tree.” 

Question:  How many stores did we have to visit before we found anything but a Charlie Brown special?

Answer: Four!  I was amazed!  At each successive store we visited, my hopes grew smaller.  One large retailer had a total of four trees left!  Well, of course, we could have bought a ten foot tree and then hacked off about four feet so it would fit in our living room, but that is not my idea of a good tree, let alone a perfect one!

Thankfully, my longsuffering husband was involved in the quest, and was willing to chauffeur me all around town.  We finally found a great selection at Home Depot, and while Paul went to find a cart of some kind, I held up a prospective tree and asked the kids, “What do you think about this one?”  Josiah, in his pre-adolescent wisdom said, “Um, I don’t know.  They all look about the same to me!”  Out of the mouth of babes…

Meanwhile, the temperature had dropped considerably, and we (I say we, but in all actuality, it was just I, since Paul and the kids wimped out and went inside the store to wait) were shivering in the garden center section of the store, waiting for the one elusive employee that could trim the tree down and net it.  Apparently, that takes a special kind of skill.  I think the ability also entitles you to extra long coffee breaks.  We waited in the howling wind for at least twenty minutes before the employee came sauntering in, wiping the doughnut crumbs from her lips, and eyed the line of people waiting to get their tree trimmed.  Yes – there was a line.  Even at this late date, there was more than one family without a Christmas tree!  Unbelievable! 

After we stuffed the tree into the back of our truck and I packed my two ice blocks, otherwise known as feet, into the truck, we headed for home like a barn-sour horse.  I dragged out the decorations and remembered that half of my lights had died last year.  Crud.  The lights have to go on first, wouldn’t you know.  I decided that fixing dinner was the better part of valor, and that you can bear almost anything on a full stomach.  So the decorating was put on hold temporarily while I nourished our bodies and souls with hot dogs.  Hey, cut me some slack – the fridge was pretty empty after being gone for two weeks!

As soon as I finished my tube steak, I jumped in the truck,  accompanied by Esther, and we headed to that great retailer, the ubiquitous Walmart.  You know, the store that sells everything.  Except white indoor Christmas lights.  Seriously… they had none.  Frantic that my evening of decorating was in peril, I dashed off to my favorite store – CVS.  While I browsed their limited selection, Esther pointed out that the lights were BOGO, saving me a costly error.  So, in the end, we got twice the lights at a store closer to home.  Whatever. :)

The kids love decorating.  The Christmas music blares while they hang all the ornaments on one side of the tree, clustered thickly like forbidden fruit.  They shriek and dance around the room, causing me to fear for the safety of my precious ornaments. 

Once the lights were on, decorating began in earnest, and the kids worked extra hard and fast, because at the end of the tree decorating process, they know their favorite part is next – the Fisher Price nativity set.  I bought it years ago when Josiah was a baby, and we only get it out at Christmas.  I guess that is what keeps it special.  Having a toy that you can only play with a few weeks out of the year is pretty memorable. 

It was quite late by the time we finished, because of all the delays, and they were all tired and ready for bed after the long day.  I cleaned up the boxes and bins, and put them back in the closet and returned to the living room to view our handiwork.  Ahhhhh!  Beautiful.  This will also show you what our living room looks like after the renovations we made.

Before: concrete floors covered with paint spray and freshly painted trim

The stone thing in the corner has been a rather difficult obstacle to overcome in my interior decorating.  It used to house some kind of wood burning stove, but that is ancient history.  It became our tool central for several months, and, I must admit, only the last vestiges were cleared away when we brought out the Christmas decorations (yikes)!

However, this is what it looks like right now.  Notice my wall collage in the making just behind the tree.  I plan to fill the whole space with pictures of different sizes and shapes.  I’ve got a pretty good start, but I still have several pictures left to mount on the wall.

 

The stone corner is now home to the much-beloved nativity set.  I love it!  There is plenty of room for them to re-enact the Christmas story on the ledge – just like a little stage!

I am looking forward to a very merry Christmas in our lovely new home! 

Happy Holiday Wreath

A few weeks ago, I mentioned my “new” picture frame and the big plans I had for turning it into a Pinterest-inspired creation.  I was able to finish it to my complete and utter satisfaction last week, and it now hangs on my front door!  It is so very different that I love it!  It has also given me a few more ideas…

And here is the full effect…

I just love coming home and seeing this!  What decorations are you putting up right now?

Back to Normal

Well, back to a normal schedule, at least.  I don’t think anyone of my acquaintance would ever accuse me of being normal, but that is beside the point. :)  Yesterday was our first day back to school.  It seemed like an extremely short Christmas break, even though is was technically two weeks long.  Throw in a few Christmas programs, a 600 mile move, and the resulting chaos of last-minute holiday shopping, cooking, and other festivities, and you don’t have much time left to enjoy the break!  I even spent several days grading papers (I am almost caught up)! I was just as reluctant to start back as the children were!  My only consolation is that we will get out in early May and have a nice, long, summer break!  I think it will keep the kids occupied as well, so that they will not be at each others’ throats all the time.  I have noticed that boredom is bad for family harmony.

I am quite pleased that I can put away the Christmas decorations and no longer have to hop over the tree, or move the stack of plastic totes upon which it rested to get into certain areas of  the trailer.  I do need to make a run to the storage unit though.  Saturday, when we were out on church visitation, I saw a very nice 7.5 foot Christmas tree sitting in the box on the curb.  After some coaxing, my husband agreed to take it home with us.  This decision was, of course, accompanied by great, gusty sighs as he wedged it into the church van.  Okay, it was not quite dumpster diving, but hey, it was a really nice tree – for free! :)  I probably won’t live that one down for a while.  The pastor told his wife that she was not to ask for it in the event that I decided I didn’t want it any more!  What is it with men and decorations?!  :)  Next year, we hopefully will have a nice place to display it.

Transferring…

My very sweet and wonderful husband bought me a new laptop for Christmas. This really was becoming more and more of a need each passing day.  My old computer took about five minutes, more or less, to boot up each day, and frequently did not want to turn off.  Using certain programs insured a lockup  (this would be my picture organizing and editing software that holds nearly 15,000 pictures).  Yep, you read that right!  I am one happy, snappy, camera toting mama!  Anyway, most of Monday and Tuesday was spent in computer lockdown while the old computer transferred all its files to the new computer.  I was so relieved I didn’t have to do each program by itself, the “old-fashioned way.”  Now all you have to do is connect both PCs to your home network and hit “Easy Transfer” and voila, it works all by itself!  Now, I was a little anxious when it took nearly 24 hours to transfer all 49 GB, afraid that one of the kids would touch it and disturb the transfer, causing us to have to start the whole process over again, but (big sigh of relief) it all worked out perfectly.  Now all I have to do is re-install some of my favorite programs – music writing, picture editing, and that kind of important stuff.

I am also trying to prepare myself for the possibility of a disaster – the chance that I might lose all my pictures.  It almost makes me cry just thinking about it!  So, I am also transferring all 15,000 pictures to my Snapfish account.  The best thing about Snapfish is not just their great photo sales, but the fact that they have unlimited online photo storage for free! I can definitely use that!  So, over the next few days, weeks, months, (as Eeyore says, “Who knows?”) I will be transferring all those memories, one MB at a time! Why did I take so many photos?!?!
A word to the wise, start uploading your photos  before you reach 15,000.  Depending on your internet speed, the time to transfer those important moments can be quite time consuming.  Right now, I am organizing all of mine by time segments (May 2010, June 2010, etc.).  That way, I will have a general idea of where to find certain events when I want a specific picture.  Don’t wait – the next crash could be around the corner! As much of a bother as it is to move pictures to online storage, it could save you a lot of tears later.

Sit Back and Enjoy

Now that the hustle and bustle of the Christmas holiday is over, I plan to just sit back and enjoy myself and my family.  We had a lovely time together on Sunday – Church service in the morning, followed by a fellowship meal and then, after much waiting, came the time to open gifts.  My favorite part is watching everyone’s faces as they see the gifts for the first time.  I got so caught up in watching, that I really didn’t get many pictures.  I did get a few pictures before the chaos began, so it will not go totally undocumented!



Here is our happy clan.  We need to get a new family photo made, but one of our children has issues with group photos.  I won’t say which one, but he has to be threatened to smile in many instances. :)  We still attempt pictures, but half the time, his little face is scowling.  I just take the pictures anyway and laugh when I think about showing them to his girlfriends in 20 years or so…  I am  such an evil mother!



As we sat with the wreckage of our materialism surrounding us, I could not help but think how good, gracious, and generous our God is.  He has given us richly all things to enjoy – including those presents for which we scrimp and save.  He gave us His Son, the greatest gift ever given.  We make a habit of listening to Handel’s Messiah each year, and the phrase of Scripture, “the Gentiles shall come to Thy light”  seemed especially poignant to me this year.  In the Old Testament, the law and its type of salvation was given only to the Jews.  With the advent of Christ, His death, burial, and resurrection, the wall of partition has been broken down, and now, salvation – without the law – is available to not only the Jews, but the Gentiles, of which I am one.  Thank God for the gift of salvation!

First Week

Our first week in Mississippi has been a flurry of activity, running here and there, trying to get our bank accounts, drivers’ licenses, registrations and the like all done before the holidays.  After several trips back and forth from our storage unit, I think we have everything we need.  I cleaned all the summer clothes out of the kids’ room so that they could put all of their winter clothes in the drawers.  That was a chore that I am glad is done for a while.

The weather here is milder than in Indiana, but I know the summers are going to be killer.  The cashier at Kroger, upon learning that we had just moved from Indiana, said to me, “Oh, you’re going to hate it here!”  I hope she was just talking about the weather! :) We didn’t have a white Christmas this year (they only get snow about once a year, and not very much at that).

We are almost all settled in, and I think after another week, things will be back to normal.  That means back to school, too.  I have one more glorious week of freedom before school starts again!  Thankfully, I had the foresight to get my lesson plans done before we moved, so I will not have to do those this weekend!  I do have some catch-up to do on my grading – it seems like those papers just multiply while sitting in my dark desk drawer…

Merry Christmas!

This has been such a busy year for us, and I know you all have had a lot going on, too.  Just wanted you to know I did get my Christmas decorations up in the trailer – with just a few days to spare!  I guess they will stay up extra long this year to make up for the late start! :)  You can see a few boxes stacked in front of the couch, too, but hopefully, those will all be gone soon! 




I thank you for reading, keeping up with me, and all of your words of encouragement over the past year as I figure out this whole world of blogging! I pray that each one of you has a Christ-honoring Christmas, filled with the joy that only Jesus Christ can bring!  Merry Christmas!

Safely Home

Welcome to Mississippi – our new place of residence!  We had a long, but uneventful drive down from Indiana, for which I was grateful, since I had to drive the 26’ Penske truck full of our junk.  I am already planning my next garage sale, and I don’t even have a garage yet! :) 

There are sad things about moving – saying goodbye to all our friends and family in the Indiana area, leaving my beautiful house(whaaaa!), and boxing up a lot of my things to be put in storage until we purchase a new home.  however, there are a lot of positive things about moving as well – being a part of another great church, making new friends, and beginning a new ministry.

Thanks to so many people who helped us get our things packed and loaded on the truck.  It was no easy job, let me tell you, and I nearly had a meltdown while loading!  Thanks, Mom, Allen, Matt, Michelle, Kirsten, Ryan, Jeff, Gord, Brad, Pastor Jordan, Mrs. Kathy, and everyone else who offered their services.  We could not have done it without you!



Here are some of our weekend heroes!  They look a little tired about now, don’t they?  Please don’t look at all the stuff – I can’t believe how much we have accumulated in the past year and a half! 

We had our Christmas programs on Sunday.  Josiah did a great job in his part as Benjamin the shepherd – he worked so hard to get all of his lines!  The big scary-looking guy is Paul.  He grew his beard out for the part.  Thank goodness, it is gone! :)



I was thrilled with the job the children did.  An added blessing was that one of the little boys came forward after the service to be saved!  Thank the Lord for His blessing!



Here they all are – dressed in their finest!  I love the bow ties for the boys – really makes everything look sharp!  The girls, of course, were beautiful in their Christmas finery!  I wish you could have heard them sing!  What a blessing to be able to work with these kids, and with my friend and director, Julie (she worked at least as hard as they did).  I am already looking forward to hearing how next year’s program goes!

The adult choir performed John W. Peterson’s cantata, Love Transcending in the evening service.  It, too, was such a blessing.  I was privileged to be a part of this momentous event!  Thanks, choir members – you all did a tremendous job!


Monday morning, we packed the trailer up, stuffed the kids in the trucks, and hit the road, headed for Mississippi.  It was a nice day for travel – cool, with scattered showers, and clear roads.  Josiah rode with me, and took this very flattering picture of me driving the truck.  :)



Driving the truck was quite a workout for me, since I am so short.  The seat didn’t scoot up far enough for me to rest my heel on the floor to work the pedals, so a lot of the day, I just had to suspend my right leg by sheer muscle power to operate the gas pedal.  I was able to use the cruise control at times, which gave me some relief, but in the construction zones, or when there was heavy traffic, I had to drive the old-fashioned way!

Well, that’s enough catching up for now.  I hope to get back on the blog regularly, once my internet connection is established.  Thanks for your patience and most of all, your prayers.

Sewing Away

In an earlier post, I mentioned getting all the 18” doll clothes patterns.  Well, I have been putting them to use lately.  I have just a few more things to finish and my sewing projects for this year will be complete.   I am trusting you not to mention this to my daughters – I have managed to keep it a secret so far, sewing late into the night after they have gone to bed.  All the clothes are modeled on the same doll for sake of time.
Disney Princess dress, Ariel – colors of my choosing. Simplicity 5705



Disney Princess Dress, Belle (without drape and gauntlets) colors of my choosing – Simplicity 5705  I intend to make a black shrug for this one, if time allows.



Dress – Simplicity 4654  This one is rather simple, but pretty in a Little House on the Prairie way. :)



Shirt and Poodle skirt – McCalls 8555  This is an older pattern, but I really love the outfits!  The poodle skirt is so easy to make!  I still have to sew the snaps on the back of the shirt, but other than that, it is all done.



What the girls also do not know is that they will each be getting nightgown with a matching nightgown for their dolls.  I found these on sale at Kohls, and with my coupons and discounts, I got them for a great deal!



So it looks as if the girls and their dollies will be well clothed in the coming year! 

To Be, or Not to Be???

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and I have broken with tradition.  I always drag out the Christmas decorations the Saturday after Thanksgiving and start beautifying our home.  I love Christmas decorations – there is something about the red and green that just makes me feel festive.  The tree comes a little later, but the rest of it goes up almost as soon as we close the door after our relatives! :)  This year however, I have a dilemma.  We are moving in three weeks ( give or take).  I want to put up just a few things, but I am thinking it might be more trouble than it is worth.  What do you think?  If you were me, what would you do?  Nothing at all until after the move, or just a touch of color here and there (they take possession on Dec. 20th – not much time to decorate after the move)?  I know what my hubby would say… but I will not ask him.  :) 



This picture is from last Christmas.  I love the tree and the white lights and the touches of red.  I will definitely miss having a real tree this year.  The little one in the corner will be our main tree again this year.  It has been our “trailer tree” for about eight years now.  It will be fun to decorate the trailer again.  When do you start decorating your home for Christmas?

Christmas List

In years past, I have asked each of my children what one thing they would most like to have for Christmas.  While some people might condemn this as materialistic, I do not see it that way.  There are no guarantees that they will get the desired item, and it is subject to my approval (and my budget)!

My dilemma is this – Josiah wants nothing but to give each member of the family a gift.  This is typical of him – sweet and selfless.  However, it is difficult to gift wrap. :)  He also mentioned a set of handcuffs.  I’m afraid to think about that too much!

Abigail has a list with lots of dollar signs on it.  It is so easy to buy for her – she loves all things girly – clothes, shoes, hairbows, dolls, among other things.  I have a ton of things for her already stashed away in my closet!

Daniel needs nothing.  All the toys have been passed down to him, and the ones that have not been passed down he has commandeered for his own use.  He could use clothes, though, so it may not be a very exciting Christmas for him.  What does he care, anyway?  Kids under the age of five should all be given a box full of hangers and crumpled up wrapping paper.  It would occupy them for weeks!

Esther stalled when I asked what she wanted.  Said she needed some time to think about it.  Okay – I can handle that.  Not that she needs anything anyway.  We have so much junk around our house that it is positively criminal to think of getting more.  Her Sunday school teacher told me that Esther finally decided what she wanted and announced it in class last week.  She wants a statue… of God!  I thought I would die laughing when I heard this!  Leave it to Esther to think of something like that!  I hope she isn’t too disappointed when it doesn’t show up under the tree this year!

What are your plans for Christmas?  Do you celebrate with family, friends, or not at all?  Do you exchange gifts or give to others in need?  Do you have any special traditions?