Christmas Celebrations at our House

(A somewhat unflattering picture of me with the pooch in my lap after filling up on Turkey on Christmas Day)

Happy New Year, everyone!

Life, as you can imagine it, has been insanely busy at our house. We had children singing in Christmas programs, and a teen who sang in the cantata (and all of the practices that go with it) and a mommy who sewed some costumes for the cantata too...not to mention a hot sale over at the This Old Schoolhouse website bookstore which kept me hopping, filling orders every day after Christmas. Praise the Lord for that. :-) And of course, there was time for baking, time for family, time for friends, and time to just spend time reflecting on just the awesome miracle that is Christmas. I hope every one of you spent time this Christmas reading the story in the Bible of Jesus' birth, and reflecting on what an amazing miracle that was. To think that the God who made heaven and earth came down to heaven in the form of a little baby is just to amazing to think about if you really start to ponder it. I always am reminded of that verse in 2 Corinthians 5:19, that says "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." If you didn't do it already, I have a great Advent Family Devotional in Ebook format on my website that you may be interested in for next year. Coming soon (next year hopefully) we will have it translated into Spanish, German and French, per many requests.

The fact that we have all had sinus problems and bronchitis for the last few weeks has only added to the back log of things that need to be done. I was holding someone else's child about 4 weeks ago, when I realized the poor little toddler was getting hotter and hotter, and sounded really congested. Within three days, I was also getting hotter and hotter and also sounding congested ;)....and soon the whole family had joined in on the fun, such that I caught it again after feeling better for a week. Thankfully though we are all still coughing a little bit, we sound much better, and my son is still boasting of being the only one in the family who remains healthy.

Of course there was also good food. My husband loves peanut brittle (the amazing part of that story is that despite enjoying peanut brittle he has only a few cavities in his mouth!), and he loves cashews instead of peanuts, so I spent some time this year making him some Cashew Brittle (which I suppose is also called "sugar" hee hee). My son, who hates nuts, observed it would taste better if it were just brittle. However, Hubby loved it. I like walnuts and hazelnuts best, so I used all of the hazelnuts from my hazelnut bush, and flavored the syrup with some mocha candy flavoring, before pouring it out. What we had was mocha flavored hazelnut brittle. It was heavenly. I'll post the recipe sometime soon, Lord willing. For the real food, we had Turkey with all the trimmings. You just can't beat that.

I am thankful too for children who are not all whiny about wanting the lastest and greatest toys and who are happy with whatever they get. I've seen so many bratty children again this year who whine and fuss at their parents about what they "expect", and it breaks my heart. I got a box of those amazing "Belgian Truffle Seashells" and that was more than enough. :-)...I'm easily pleased. LOL but I would not complain if there was an IPod under the tree either.

Without further ado, here is a photo of our Christmas celebration, with the whole crew (children, grandparents) at the table.

The kids and I decided to put the christmas lights up in the dining room around the entire top of the room. It made it look really nice in there. I think we may just leave them. Is that too redneck of us to have Christmas lights up all year long?

Somehow my kitchen looks a lot messier in this picture than it does in real life...but anyway, this is a picture of my hubby carving the bird.

Happy 2007!