Thursday Thankfulness and Life in the Christmas Village

There's a full moon rising out there, and it is so beautiful. My little phone camera doesn't have the special features to really zoom in on the moon, but we can enjoy looking at it anyway and give thanks to the Lord for letting His Light shine on us so beautifully.  God placed the moon and the stars in the heavens for us to enjoy, and so I will give Him praise and thanksgiving for these gifts.

And while I was outside looking at the moon, I also enjoyed looking at our little grapevine Christmas tree on the front porch.  My son Benton and I made that little tree out of the wild grapevines found in our woods around our previous home in the Ocala National Forest. It was a job to do, but I'm so glad we did it.  This little tree has blessed our front porches ever since.

This is a close up of the little Nativity scene on the top of the porch tree. Jesus was born in a stable outside, so it is fitting that this is also outside...

And here's the lit up view of the stable...I'm so thankful for Jesus, that little Babe in the manger...aren't you?

Luke 2: 6-7

"6 So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. 7 And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn."

I am thankful for our kids and grand pups coming over to help us set up the train and village last night.

Sugar and Spice were quite curious about everything that was going on.  

Here's Benton putting together the train tracks...

And meanwhile Rose helped me set up all the little buildings for the village.

Our village is the old fashioned Lionel Plasticville type of buildings, and they are not very user friendly like the new cute little village buildings you can buy in the store. These are plastic, and have to be snapped together, and they really don't hold together very well anymore as they are quite old, so we have to tape the corners and carefully set them up on a flat surface and pray they don't fall apart before you can get them set up under the tree.  It's quite challenging, and I am happy Rose is patient and willing to help me with this project each year.

Meanwhile, Benton got the train engine running on the track, and Sugar and Spice went kind of crazy. They had never seen this before and they were very very excited and barking and somewhat afraid of that little black engine going around on that track.  

It took some doing to calm them down, but every time the train started up again, they were right there barking like it was the most exciting thing they'd ever seen. It was really quite funny. Their tails were wagging the whole time.

Finally we got most of the village set up, and then Benton and I tried to get the whole train moving on the track. It took some time and patience as we worked out the wrinkles...mostly the wrinkles in the sheet under the track that kept getting hung up on the train...

You can see the doggies are still quite interested in this project.

Another thing I am very thankful for is that I was able to get down on the floor with a little more ease than this time last year. AND, I was able to get back up without going through tremendous pain. (Still needed to figure out HOW to get back up,  but once I got myself moving in the right direction, it wasn't so terrible). Last year this time I was still recovering from neck surgery and had a very badly frozen shoulder and weak and painful arms. So trying to do this last year was almost impossible for me. But this year, even though I still have some shoulder/upper arm issues on both arms, it is not nearly as bad as before and I am VERY thankful to God for His continued healing.

And, I enjoyed being able to get down and "play" with the trains with our son. Sweet times. We missed having our son Scott here to help us with this,  as he is the more agile of the whole bunch, but we managed to get it done. When he comes home to visit he will be surprised!

This train and village is the same one that our kids played with when they were little boys. My dad, who was a toy train collector, gave them the train, and we accumulated the village buildings little by little over the years.  

Here is a link to the post I wrote about this a couple of years ago. This tells more of the history of the train set and village with our kids. We have a lot of precious memories with all three of our boys back in the day playing with the trains. 

So today I tried to finish setting up more of the village people.

It is a job to get down there on the floor and do this. Maybe one day we will figure out a way to put this up on a table...

But we only do this once a year, and it's definitely NOT done to perfection.  

But it brings back a lot of happy memories and we enjoy being a "child" again at Christmas time...

I try to envision myself living in this little village and putting myself in the place of those little tiny people going about their daily lives...going to church, the kids going to school, people coming and going at the train station...there's a big hospital where people go to get well when they are sick, and there's a skating pond for the kids to enjoy.  

It's just a microcosm of life in the world today...although we don't seem to be as dependent on the trains as we used to be.  That's kind of sad in a lot of ways...but life moves on.

I am thankful for our little village where we live now, and for the people who come and go and live and love and share their lives with us in various ways.

We are blessed to live in a free country...and I pray that never ever changes...may we never take these freedoms for granted...

Well, that's the tour of the Christmas village...Oh...Baby Elva and Lily Grace and their little friends Bailey and Boo Bear are enjoying the train and village too.  

One more thing...

One of our dear and very talented blogging friends paints a new Santa picture each year. Then she takes a picture of it and creates her own special Christmas cards.  I don't know if you know Linda Chapman or not,, from Linda's Life Journal, but I was so thrilled and blessed to receive this beautiful Christmas card from her in the mail and I was just awestruck! Truly she is very talented...and I love that this Santa is holding a snow globe in his hands that has a nativity scene inside of it. What a blessing! Thank you, Linda, for sharing your gifts with us. I feel so honored and blessed to have received this card from you! 

And now I know I need to get busy and send out some cards myself, but I honestly am not sure that I will be able to send a lot of them this year. I mostly send our cards to people that I don't get to communicate with as often throughout the year on social media, etc....some family and old friends who aren't necessarily computer savvy and thus they don't keep up with our daily activities like we all do here, but I want to stay in touch with them and Christmas is usually the only time.  So, please don't be hurt if you don't hear from me at Christmas time via the mail. "My spirit is willing, by my flesh is weak"...LOL.   But to those of you who do send out cards, I commend you and thank you for them. 

Each and every one of you is a blessing to me, and I look forward to hearing from you here in blogland and Facebook, etc., as often as possible! You are very special people indeed.

Okay, that's it folks. I need to call it a night. 

Oh, I forgot the most important thing I am thankful for this week...

my health! I am finally feeling so much better than I was for the past two weeks. I am very very thankful for that!! Praise God!

Okay,  Good night dear ones.

May God bless you each and every one.