"Twas the Saturday Before Christmas..."

(Our front door-mat)

And all through the house not much was happening...except for taking two naps already today, which tells me that my body is saying enough already...slow down and rest or you won't make it until Christmas!  I've had such good intentions this Christmas and have really tried to get more things done, but I've reached my limit and I have to know when to say stop and take a break before you break. However, there's still gift-wrapping to do and baking and...the list goes on...but what is most important will get done, and the rest...well if it happens it happens, and if it doesn't it doesn't. 

I had good intentions of going Christmas caroling with a group from our church last evening. They were going around to sing at the homes of several of our church members who are homebound either by illness or "old-age", and I really wanted to be a part of that.  But as the day wore on I knew I wasn't going to make it for various reasons, mostly physical.  So I stayed home and prayed for them to have a good turn-out and a happy time for those who would be blessed by their singing. I've heard that it was really wonderful.

I don't know that our group looked quite like these folks, but this was how I imagined it in my mind...

I found these vintage carolers at a consignment market this past week for a very very cheap price and I couldn't resist them.  It's a little early Christmas gift to myself. LOL.  

One thing I did do was go to the Candlelight and Carols service at the little church out in the country on Thursday evening.

It's always a highlight of our Christmas season. Our church choir sings a couple of songs and so does another church choir, and it's a wonderful time...

We close by gathering around the Nativity scene outside with our little candles and sing Silent Night. And then the church provides a delightful time of food and fellowship afterwards.

Another reason I am trying to just rest and take it easy today is because tomorrow morning at church our choir will be presenting this Cantata:

It requires standing and singing (with a couple of quick sit downs and back up again between a couple of songs) for at least a half hour, and although I love to sing and enjoy doing this every year, it can be quite exhausting if you aren't feeling quite up to par. So I am praying that I will feel MUCH better tomorrow morning and that God will give me the strength to get through this without any difficulty. I'm concerned that I may be getting a bit of a relapse either of the walking pneumonia or something since I am so tired...so please say a little prayer for me to be able to do this tomorrow without harm to myself or anyone else around me.

Here's a few photos of Blackie for the Blackie fans out there...I know some of you have become real fans and are hoping he will someday be able to move into our house where he will reign and rule...LOL...

Here's one of his favorite places to hang out during the day and watch the world go by...

He feels safe up there in that tree when there are loose dogs running in the neighborhood, like there were today...

But when I came outside to get the mail he saw me and came right down to see me.  

Like all cats, he loves high places, and that's one reason I'm not sure he'd do well in our house as we have a lot of things up on high places above the cabinets and other shelves, etc., and I can just imagine things going crash all through the night.  Time will tell who wins out...

I know some of you who have been my friends for a long time may wonder why you don't see much of "Baby Elva" anymore...well she's still here, "alive and well", so to speak, and here she is all dressed up for Christmas:

For those who don't know about Baby Elva, HERE is a link to her story from the beginning.

If you look at her older pictures in the link, you will notice here that her hair is a bit different. That's because over the past 15 years! (I can't believe we've had her that long!!) that we've had her, her hair started to kind of "rub off" and get thin. So I finally decided it was time to give her a new hairstyle, and I found this wig online for her. It really changes her looks to more of a toddler look than a baby, but that's okay since she's 15 years old now! LOL.  Anyway, Baby Elva is a special part of our lives and I wanted you to see her all dressed up for Christmas!

Oh, here she's sitting with my little "Bear Bear", which was a special gift from my hubby when I was in the hospital one time.  He's now also a special part of our lives...

And of course we can't forget Lily Grace and her dog Bailey...she wanted to be in the Christmas picture too...so here you go...Merry Christmas from Bear Bear, Baby Elva and Lily Grace and Bailey to you!

While we're at it, we might as well add Lily's friends, as they are getting ready to have their "Happy Birthday to Jesus" Christmas tea party:

And here's the Martin Sisters, ready for their Christmas tea...

And Santa and "Pammy"  Doll...

"Pammy Doll" was a gift from my mother many years ago. 

She made the dress for her to resemble the dresses she made for my sister Doris and me when we were little girls...

Doris on the left with her Bride Doll "Florence", and me with a baby doll on the right.

Here is the note my mother wrote in the little card when she gave this to me...

Not sure if you can read it and it's starting to fade, but it's pretty special to me to have this sweet gift from my mother.

HERE is a link to a very special TEA PARTY that I had with all the dolls a few years ago.  I hope you enjoy it as I had fun doing that. Actually, this was before Lily Grace came to live with us, so she's the only one missing from the group.

But here is the greatest group and celebration of all...Here is the reason why we celebrate and sing and rejoice...Jesus! The Savior is Born!!!  None of the rest of this means anything without Him.

Luke 2:14 NKJV

14 “Glory to God in the highest,

And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

I believe! Amen.

4th Sunday of Advent

 Today was the 4th Sunday of Advent, and after the lighting of the 4th Advent Candle our choir presented  our cantata, "Christmas Forever Amen", and per my promise, here is the recording from our dress rehearsal.  I hope you will enjoy this Christmas message in song.  

After church our kids came over for lunch and Rose and I had a plan to make some Chex party mix and other Christmas snacks using different Chex cereals, etc.  Here we are:

Rose is making the traditional Chex Party Mix recipe that you can find on the back of most Chex cereals.  It uses all three, rice, corn, and wheat chex, plus we added cheerios, pretzels and mixed nuts. 

And I am making the kind that has white chocolate (almond bark) covering it, and it has cheerios, corn and rice chex, pretzels and peanuts.

Here are our trays of finished products:

Oh, Rose made one more, "Muddy Buddies" or "Puppy Chow" mix, and it uses chocolate, peanut butter, and powdered sugar, among other ingredients. I'm not going to post recipes because you can pull up these recipes online pretty easily.  Some are a little different than others and you can adapt them to suit your tastes!

I'm not sure where all of this is going yet...we divided it up between us and we may be sharing it with some people if it doesn't get eaten up before we can share it! LOL.  The main thing is we enjoyed doing this together, like a real "mother and daughter" kind of day, even though we are mother in law and daughter in law...I'm thankful we both enjoy each other's company and have fun spending time together. That is a true blessing.  I didn't take a picture of it, but this morning in church Benton and Rose helped to serve communion, and watching them standing there together serving the Lord's Supper to our church family nearly brought me to tears. It was a special moment that I treasure in my heart.

After Rose and I got finished mixing up all those snacks, we sat down to rest while they cooled and/or set before we could pack them up in containers.  While we were doing that, we were enjoying time with the guys, who were watching football, and then I remembered that we had received a special package in the mail for someone "extra special" in our house, and her name is Lily Grace. The package came from her "Auntie Debbi" in South Carolina, who is the dear blogging friend who sent Lily Grace to me in the first place. In true "Auntie" fashion, she sends Lily Christmas packages full of fun stuff every year. She had given permission for Lily to open the package before Christmas, and so we decided today would be a good time to do that while we were all together.  (If you aren't familiar with Lily Grace's story, you can click HERE for her arrival to our home about three years ago. And then Lily became so popular, she started writing her own blog, The Adventures of Lily Grace. However, because she needed my help to keep up with her blog posts, I'm afraid we kind of got lost by the wayside as I just couldn't keep up with writing two blogs, so now she mostly makes cameo appearances here on my blog posts, like today:

Here's how the package looked when it arrived in the mail:

And here's how excited Lily Grace was when she discovered a present wrapped up inside with her name on it:

It's so much fun to receive packages in the mail, isn't it?  Sure beats a gift card any day!

Lily Grace was thrilled to find a picture of her identical cousin Tracie in the box...

And Tracie had sent her a note on the picture that says:

"Dear Lily Grace, When I picked out my Christmas dress, I asked Mommy if I could send you one just like it and she said YES! So we can be twins!"

It's really too bad that Tracie lives in South Carolina, which is kind of far away, but maybe someday they will get to be together again and then they can wear their identical dresses and be twins!

Isn't it beautiful?

Also there were some other special gifts in the box...a little laptop computer, and goldfish bowl, (with a little goldfish in it!)

And  some pretty beads and best of all a CAMERA!

Lily said: "And can you imagine my excitement when I discovered that the camera really works? Well, it flashes when you press the button! See?"

"I can't wait to take lots of pictures!"

Meanwhile, as this was all going on, some "one" was watching it all with much interest:

Yes, that's Spice, one of our grandpuppies, and she was SO curious about who that was in "Grandma's lap" getting so many new toys!  She was just about to leap out of Rose's lap and come and check this thing out:

And then she did, and she got her sister Sugar to come and see what was going on too:

They were both SO curious about Lily Grace and her new toys:

Thankfully they just sniffed and watched, but didn't try to take her new toys away! LOL.

They were more interested in the train going round and round the village:

And yes, that was ME on the floor, running the train controls. Getting down there was difficult enough, but thankfully there are no pictures of me getting back  up! That was NOT a pretty sight, and I would not permit it to be shown publicly! LOL.

(This video was actually taken the night before, when the kids were over for supper, which Rose and I made together, Pasta, Ground beef and fresh mushrooms in a homemade alfredo sauce, a tossed salad and garlic toast. It was YUMMY!, but I digress)

Anyway, the doggies  finally got more interested in watching the train again and Lily Grace was able to go show her friends her new outfit and gifts that she received from Aunt Debbi.

 It was a lovely day and "one little girl" was sure surprised and happy!  

Meanwhile, you may have noticed the arrangement on the dining room table from the picture of the dinner from last night:

I cut some fresh holly from the trees and also some sprigs from a small cedar tree that is growing wild, and added them to these cedar candle holders that Benton had made for me a few years ago. It made a lovely little fresh winter arrangement.  

After supper I decided I needed to put the greenery in some water so they wouldn't die:

So I made a little arrangement in a glass pitcher of water to hopefully prolong their life so we can enjoy them for a few more days.  (If you look real carefully, you will see hubby in the background sitting in his recliner and watching football while I am doing this.  He's probably oblivious to all this activity going on over on the table and also the following added interesting item:

Somehow, unbeknownst to me, I was making a video of myself carrying the pitcher of water with the greenery back to the table and setting it on the table. I had no idea the camera was recording this, and if you listen carefully at the very beginning of the video you can hear me whispering something to myself...something unintelligible! LOL. I have no clue what I was saying, but it looks like I am walking through a jungle until I get to the table. I just thought I might as well add this video to this post to go along with all the other fun and crazy stuff of the past couple of days! Maybe it will give you a good laugh or two.

Well, if you've made it this far in this post today, I thank you for hanging in there with me. I realize it's been a bit long and filled with a mish mash of things, but I hope you enjoyed coming along with me for the past couple of days of fun activities.  If you listened to the video at the beginning of this post of our Cantata, you will have already heard our choir sing this song. It would be difficult to go back and find this one song out of the whole program, so I am posting this one for you, not our choir singing of course.  This was one of the songs that had a beautiful message that I wanted to leave with you for tonight:  Rose of Bethlehem...

"There's a Rose in Bethlehem

With a beauty quite divine

Perfect in this world of sin

On this silent, holy night

There's a fragrance much like hope

That it sends upon the wind

Reaching out to every soul

From a lowly manger's crib

Oh, Rose of Bethlehem

How lovely, pure and sweet

Born to glorify the Father

Born to wear the thorns for me

There's a Rose in Bethlehem

Colored red like mercy's blood

It's the flower of our faith

It's the blossom of God's love

Though its bloom is fresh with youth

Surely what will be He knows

For a tear of morning dew

Is rolling down the Rose

Oh, Rose of Bethlehem

How lovely, pure and sweet

Born to glorify the Father

Born to wear the thorns for me

There's a Rose in Bethlehem

With a beauty quite divine

Perfect in this world of sin

On this silent, holy night

Oh, Rose of Bethlehem

How lovely, pure and sweet

Born to glorify the Father

Born to wear the thorns for me"

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Lowell Alexander

Jesus was that "Rose of Bethlehem", lovely, pure and sweet.  He was born to glorify the Father, and born to wear those thorns for me...and you, and everyone who will believe in Him and accept Him as Savior and Lord. That's the real message of Christmas. Jesus came as a baby, but He grew to be a perfect, sinless Man, God in the flesh. He wore that crown of thorns on His brow when He went to the cross to die for you and me.  He was sinless, we were sinful, but He wore those thorns for us, so that we might be made pure and sinless and be able to enter heaven to live with Him forever. Such a powerful, beautiful message.  Makes you really think about a rose and those thorns on it a little differently as well. Something to consider when we come to the manger to see the Baby Jesus on Christmas, isn't it?  He wore those thorns for you and me.  

Good night my friends. It's going to be a busy week for all of us, so we may be kind of hit and miss in our reading and posting, but we'll all get back to "normal" once all the excitement of the holidays simmers back down.  God bless you each and everyone.

Wednesday Treasures

 It's been a busy few days since I last wrote. Got a little Christmas shopping done, but still not done. It's coming together slowly, but I am trying not to stress over it and just enjoy the journey.  I've also been busy with decorations and am pretty much done with that, with the exception of the train and village under the tree. We shall see if that even happens this year. At this point, it pretty much depends upon whether or not the kids will come back and help put it together or not. If not, then it probably won't happen because that getting down on the floor business (and then getting back up) is a little more than us old folks can handle these days. LOL  

So here are a few snippets of what has been accomplished. Every day is kind of like opening a new window on the Advent Calendar! I may not show you everything at once, and save some things for the rest of the days to follow.  That way you won't be too overwhelmed with pictures!  

For today's Advent window we are looking in on the Carolers singing their songs:

I think they must be singing "Joy to the World, the Lord is come, let earth receive her King..."

"Let heaven and nature sing...let heaven and nature sing, let heaven and heaven and nature sing..."

Have you ever gone caroling?  I'm afraid it is becoming a lost tradition...but we truly enjoyed going back a few years ago, going around to the homes of people we knew who were shut ins, and we stood outside and sang Christmas carols to them. They'd come to the door and sing along or sometimes cry because it meant so much to them to be remembered. It's a lovely tradition, and it would be nice to keep it going.

And then this arrived today in the mail as a big surprise!  It is from a dear blogging friend who loves to send surprises in the mail! I am always amazed and humbled by her thoughtfulness and giving spirit.  

It's like a giant snow globe with carolers singing outside a church...really really sweet!!

Here is a video of it in action. 

The Carolers remind me of our choir...we are currently practicing for our Christmas Cantata, which will be presented on Christmas Eve morning at church.  Last night we practiced the cantata all the way through, and it really is going to be special.  We are very small in number this year as several choir members haven't been able to participate with us, but for those of us who are there, we are singing our hearts out! We pray that God will be glorified by what we offer in song, and that hearts will be blessed with the Christmas story once again.  We will be recording it the week before at our dress rehearsal, so maybe I'll be able to share it with you then.

Speaking of our church, if you recall I mentioned that we have recently been approved to  disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church, and we are becoming a part of the new Global Methodist Church, which is Biblically conservative and follows the Wesleyan Tradition.  Since we are no longer affiliated with the United Methodist denomination we must remove all signs that have the logo of the UMC, which is the cross with the red flame beside it.  I am sad we have to remove the red flame, which signifies the Holy Spirit, but it is a requirement of the agreement.  So today our Building and Grounds manager planned to remove the small signs on the sides of the church bell tower. 

 He knew that I like to take pictures of all church events for our church Facebook page, so he invited me to come and watch and take pictures!  The Pastor was also helping by holding the ladder, and my hubby was there giving moral support.  It was a very chilly, windy day, but the job got done.

This little plaque will remain on the church as it gives historical information.  We may change the wording eventually to put the correct name, which is now Interlachen Methodist Church. That is actually the original name of the church. It didn't become a United Methodist Church until the denomination merged with the United Brethren denomination back in 1968. So now we have come full circle back to our original beginnings. There's a LOT of history in this little building. It has always stood strong for Christ in this community, and we pray it will continue to do so for many years to come.

Well, I guess that's enough for today's Advent Calendar Window.  We have great hope and joy in our hearts at this Christmas season. God is blessing our home and family with His peace and health and healing, and He is also blessing our little church with a glorious new beginning.

Isaiah 9:2, 6-7

2 

2 The people who walked in darkness

Have seen a great light;

Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death,

Upon them a light has shined.

6 For unto us a Child is born,

Unto us a Son is given;

And the government will be upon His shoulder.

And His name will be called

Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

7 Of the increase of His government and peace

There will be no end,

Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,

To order it and establish it with judgment and justice

From that time forward, even forever.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

And now to close this post with a little "levity"...The darkness in this photo is a little bit enhanced, but this was our sunset one day last week.  After I shared it on Facebook, my sister wrote and said it looked like Santa and his reindeer were already flying up in the sky...Do you see him?  "Well, you'd better watch out, you'd better not shout, you'd better not cry, I'm telling you why! Santa Claus is coming to town!" LOL.

And with that I will bid you good night my friends. 

Santa Claus may be coming to town, 

but Jesus is coming too...so we'd best be ready...

Until next time,

Good night and God bless you all.