Welcome Christmas

This is our favorite time of the year. There is something magical about this time of year as I have mentioned before. We enjoy christmas lights, christmas music, baking goodies, giving of ourselves, rendering service, and thinking more about our Savior and all that he has done for us.

As soon as Thanksgiving is over I pull out the boxes of Christmas decorations and fill every room with something. This year we started a bit earlier. I came home from work last Wednesday and went to work at making pies and stuffing to bring to our friends for Thanksgiving dinner. I was in the kitchen cooking and listening to Christmas music. When Adam walked in we greeted each other and he then went back out to the garage and the next thing I know he is bringing in the Christmas boxes full of decorations and pulling them all out. I later asked him why he did it, and he told me. He said when he came home and heard the Christmas music playing and the pie baking he thought it was time to put up Christmas decorations.

Welcome to our home! Where we love to celebrate Christmas. The lights stream across and down the banister which light up the garland. We have the Christmas tree decorated and full of meaningful ornaments. I want to show you my favorite one. This star is the very first one Adam and I bought together our first year of marriage. We bought it in the summer in Park City, Utah. I just fell in love with it and it has become one of our traditions to purchase one ornament each year to add to the tree. It doesn't matter when we buy it. It can be any time of the year, but it is the one we find together and it speaks to us that it is the one that belongs on our tree. This is still my favorite after all these years.

I found this Santa mail box a few years ago and boy did we have fun with it last year. I was thinking about what we were doing last year at this time. My younger sister who was pregnant at the time and her 3 boys came to live with us temporarily while they were in transition for a move to Germany. Her husband is in the military (in the Army) and he was away. So last year when I pulled out Santa's mailbox we learned how magical it really is.

If you put a letter in the box and put up the red flag. The next day your letter is gone and within a week your get a response from Santa. Last year Ethan, our 6 year old nephew, decided to try out the mail box. Ethan and his Uncle Spencer each wrote Santa a letter. I found out that Uncle Spencer asked Santa to bring his sisters what ever they wanted for Christmas and to keep all the families safe. Ethan asked Santa to send him a picture of himself. About a week later we hear Ethan screaming at the top of his lungs that there was a letter in the box. Santa had sent him a letter from the North Pole. In the large envelope was a letter that was hand written on Santa's personal stationary. The top of the page read "from the desk of Santa Claus" Then the letter proceeded to talk directly to Ethan.

Did you know that Santa's favorite color is Red? Well, so is Ethan's. Santa's letter was written with very shaky handwriting. But of course, because he lives in the North Pole and it is very cold there. There was also something else in the package to Ethan. It was a hand drawn picture of Santa. He said his elf "Art" drew it for him at his last Christmas Party and he wanted Ethan to have it. The picture really captured the gleam in Santa's eyes. It was a treasured experience for the kids and for the adults. I am sad my newphews are gone, but it has now become one of our family traditions to send Santa a letter directly from our magical mail box.

My parents gave this to us as an early Christmas gift and told us we could open it up when we pulled out the tree. What a great surprise to find this beautiful handmade Nativity. My parents just returned home from Singapore, where they have been living, just over the past 2 years. They did a lot of traveling while they were there serving a Public Relations Mission. On their travels they went to Indonesia. They purchased this incredible Nativity from Darno, an Indonesian young man, he had hand made this to sell so he could pay for his schooling. He was a senior at Indonesian Nazarene Bible College, preparing for the ministry. Thank you Darno for sharing your talent and the detail is amazing. It is made out of Bamboo. Thank you Mom and Dad for an awesome gift.