Christmas

On Christmas Eve Grandma Joan and Aunt Tiffany joined us for our traditional dinner: Chicken Curry with dried fruit and cashews. We finished our Advent reading and lit all the candles of our Advent wreath and listened to a John Piper poem - The Innkeeper.
We let the kids open one gift before they go to bed - it's typically new pajamas.

Ron and I stayed up late stuffing the stockings and listening to Christmas carols by the fire in our room.

On Christmas Day, the kids woke up early and opened their stockings while we drank hot coco or coffee in our jammies. Dad made our traditional Christmas breakfast: egg, ham and cheese croissants. After our breakfast we opened presents.

This year, we had the kids draw names with each other and we bought each kid one special thing.

Ashley got her guitar, Taylor an American Girl Doll (Samantha), Paige received art lessons and supplies, Courtney got camera accessories and Zach cologne and clothes.

After we cleaned up, we all pitched in to get ready for Christmas Dinner. The girls and I spent the entire afternoon making bread, pie, chocolate triffle, stuffing, potatoes, ham, salad, veggies... Grandma Joan and Tiffany came around one o'clock with Rib Roast, carrots, pecan tassies, shortbread and homemade fudge.

We invited a new friend from church who grew up Jewish and is recently converted to Christianity. We spent the afternoon talking, playing games, eating dinner, enjoying great desserts and playing more games. We even had a fun, web-cam conversation with our family in Brazil.

In the evening, we all gathered around the computer to listen to John Piper read the Advent Poem of Hosea and Gomer - and were deeply affected as we were reminded of the reality of God's unrelenting love toward us.

All in all, it was a good day - celebrating God's goodness with people we loved, connecting with family that live far away, welcoming a new "brother-in-the-faith" to our family... with lots of good food, fun and laughter. It was a great Christmas!