Celebrating

Dear Friends,

I trust that the holidays were kind to you.  For us, it was, as usual, a busy time of hustle and bustle.  We enjoyed sharing gifts with our kids, and blessing the rest of our family too.  At first, I struggled this year with even wanting to give gifts to everyone and with scrimping to spend money that was tight.  As we contemplated it, we wanted to give to Jesus on his birthday but did that mean buying lots for everyone but him? 

But then, I realized that He said, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40)  So we were pleased to be able to make efforts for his birthday and others did the same for us.  Some wonderful “Santa Claus” left gifts for our family at our home just before Christmas.  What a touching treat!  That experience helped me to realize that we wanted to make sure that our family, our kids know that they are our first priority in sharing the love of God. 

So in addition to our traditional stockings and gifts and turkey comas with several different family groups, we enjoyed a couple of neat activities that were new:

We enjoyed a wonderful gathering of friends in which we got to sing some old fashioned Christmas carols to get us “in the mood” to celebrate the coming of the Saviour.  That was so refreshing.  Thank you, Friends!

As well, our oldest daughter made a birthday cake for Jesus and we all sang Happy Birthday to Him.  Then each of us gave a gift of praise to Jesus and blew out one candle.  Afterwards, we each chose a gift from the Samaritan’s Purse catalogue for him.  An excellent birthday party on Christmas day!

What old and new traditions highlighted your holidays, friends?

And what are you looking forward to you for the New Year?

Soon I will post some of the exciting things that I am looking forward to for 2012…  I will resume the Mother Culture posts and am getting into the readings for the next Charlotte Mason meeting…  Then, ever so quickly, homeschool conference season will be upon us and I will look forward to seeing many of you in person at one or another….

Until then…  wishing you all a (belated) Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year.

Blessings,

Cori