What a wonderful Christmas--we are truly blessed. We spent this Christmas at our log home in Brevard, NC, with our oldest daughter Mandy and her husband Brian, and our granddaughter Lydia, and my sister Mary Beth and her husband Duane and their three children--Karen, Patrick, and Meghan. Oh, and there were five dogs, also. We bought two live trees--a beautiful spruce and a holly--and decorated them and planted them later. The holly tree is in memory of little "Piccolo"--the baby Mandy and Brian recently lost--and the spruce is the first of hopefully many more Christmas trees to come.
We played board games, enjoyed a white Christmas, went shopping, even lost power and had to snuggle a bit! We all learned the ins and outs of Farkle!, ate way too much candy, and even had a group caroling session at our neighbors', the Clarkes'--with Brian on guitar, Meghan on trumpet, and Marianna on electric organ. We baked bread, walked dogs (a lot), ate, drank wine, talked, cried, opened gifts, ate some more, sang, went to church, prayed, and basically had a wonderful time. Lydia had more attention than she knew what to do with, and Brian had a heck of a time getting everything in their car.
And two thousand years ago a little babe was born in a manger, surrounded by farm animals, while his virgin mother and carpenter father looked on and angels sang hallelujah under a starry night so we could celebrate His birth over and over again. And that is what Christmas is all about--celebrating His birth and our rebirth.
