Thursday Thankfulness For So Much Christmas Fun!

 Oh friends, it's been such a whirlwind of activity around here this week! I'm SO thankful that I am finally all better from the walking pneumonia, and that I've been able to get back to living and enjoying the Christmas /Advent season again!  Thankfully I was able to go to choir practice on Tuesday night, as we are on the countdown to our Christmas Cantata, which will be presented in church on Sunday, December 21, but we will be recording it next Tuesday night at our rehearsal, so really this was kind of a "dress rehearsal" for the "Dress Rehearsal". I'll tell you more about that in a later post.

On Wednesday I was able to attend our annual Women in Faith Christmas Party/Luncheon. That is always a highlight of the year and I sure didn't want to miss it.  Here's a few snapshots from the day:

One special part of our celebration is that we have a special cake made especially to celebrate the birthday of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We sing "Happy Birthday Jesus", and rejoice that we are a part of His wonderful family:

We do have a gift exchange, which is voluntary if you wish to participate:

But every lady received one of these lovely little bags as a memento of our fellowship as "Sisters in Christ."

Here's a few pictures of the tables of happy ladies:

And here's my tablemate:   My sweet dil Rose was able to have the day off so she could attend:

And here's yours truly...someone took my camera away and took my picture. You will note that I am wearing a lot of different Christmas pins on my sweater. Many have been given to me over the years, and you can only wear them once a year, so why not wear them all at once? 

As you can see, we had plenty of good food

 And desserts...

And there was my JOY in the place:

And here's what I took:  Amish Fruit Salad

The recipe is below:

And it came from this cookbook:

Which I didn't remember until yesterday when I read this that my mother had given me this cookbook many many years ago!  We were living in Ohio at that time, but I know I didn't go to that restaurant.  I think she bought this when she was in Ohio visiting her sister down nearer to where this was, and then she brought me the cookbook when they traveled on up to visit us where we were living at the time, close to Cleveland. I was thrilled when I re-discovered this note in the front of the book reminding me that she had given this to me. So that made it extra special. I love the cookbook and have used many recipes from it over the years.

And speaking of recipes and also my sweet daughter in law...the "Kids" came over last night and Rose brought all the makings for homemade pizza!

We had fun patting out the dough...

Then we loaded them up with all kinds of good toppings that she had prepared to put on the pizzas:

After they baked to perfection...

we sat down to give thanks and enjoy them together!

And they were every bit as good as we anticipated they would be!

And why where they here for this particular evening? Well, it was time for our annual put the train village together event...Here's Rose helping out with putting all the little village buildings together, which is a major job, because most of them are very old "Plasticville" village buildings, and they have to be assembled, which, when they were new was probably not difficult, but over the years they have gotten a bit deteriorated in some ways by heat from storage, or little pieces broken, and they don't snap together like they should and it is very challenging to make them look good again, but every year we keep trying. Every year I say this may be the last time we do this because it is such a hassle, but I'm not quite ready to give up yet...

While we were working on the buildings, Benton was setting up the train tracks, with the help of our sweet Grandpups,  Sugar and Spice:

Then we had some technical difficulty in getting the trains, (again, very OLD Lionel trains), to actually run on the tracks.  Rose is the more technically minded of our group and she tried to figure it out, but still to no avail.

Spice looks a bit disappointed that she didn't get to see the trains actually running around the track. The pups love to bark at them as they fly by...

Finally we had to call it a night, and decided that perhaps when our son Scott comes home on the weekend he might be able to figure out why the train isn't working.

I wanted to thank Benton for all his hard work in getting the tracks set up. He was then busy getting the pups ready to go home...

You can see that once the word "HOME" was spoken, the pups were up and ready to go out the door!  

And so that was the end of that evening.  The little village is set up and ready for action, whenever the trains start to roll again...

And with that, I think I will close this chapter, because there's a Part Two to this story...but you will have to come back tomorrow to see what it is...

While we leave this little village to prepare for Christmas, here is a new version of the old hymn "O Little Town of Bethlehem" to get our thoughts on the real reason we are celebrating this special event...

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.  Now please come back tomorrow for a special story...

 

Christmas Days Continue...

 Two days after Christmas...are these the "Twelve Days of Christmas"?  I believe they are, from December 25th until January 6th.  

Regardless of what we believe or don't believe about the 12 days of Christmas and what they represent,  these twelve days are special and somehow I just can't shut down "Christmas" too quickly. I am still enjoying the sweetness of the moments shared with loved ones and the happy memories made and the smiles on each face as we enjoyed the day together.

Today I didn't do a whole lot...just continuing to kind of clean up and put away things, washing up the new gifts that need washing...(any clothing articles, etc.) and simply enjoying the beauty of the twinkling lights on the tree and around the house. It was a rather dark and gloomy day, and we even had some light drizzly rain this afternoon.  I was thinking to myself that we haven't seen much of the sun or a sunset recently as the days have been rather cloudy. And then I looked out the window in my "room with a view" as I sat down to write...and this is what I saw:

The evening sun was breaking through the clouds and casting its reflection upon Still Waters Pond, brightening up the horizon and bringing a feeling of peace along with it.

One last look before the sun slipped down behind the trees and the clouds overtook it once again. 

Thank You, Lord, for smiling down upon us for a few brief moments. Sometimes we just need to see that!

I looked on my desk and saw this new coaster that I received as a little gift...it reminds me of my "One Word" for 2024..."Strength"...

And I was reminded that I also received this little card with this verse on it from a dear friend in Minnesota who sent some thoughtful gifts...I called her up when I opened this and asked her if she realized that strength was my "One Word" for 2024, and she said, "yes, I've read that in your blog".  (I didn't know she read my blog...she's not one of our blogging friends, but the sister of our dear daughter in law Rose, and a dear friend to us as well.) That really touched my heart.  It reminded me also that we do not know who all reads our blogs and just how far our words may be reaching!  I know of a couple of dear blogging friends from the Netherlands area, and one from New Zealand, but beyond that I am not sure.  But we just never know who is reading and what speaks to them.  A good reminder to always speak truth and life and light.

Going back to the coaster with Proverbs 31:25, "She is clothed in Strength and dignity..."   made me think about this very precious gift I received from my sweet daughter in law Rose...Bless her dear heart, she crocheted this for me! I asked her when did she have the time? She's been working long full time hours for the past several weeks, and I know she also has so much to do at home for their home business of creating and painting items that they sell on Etsy, etc. ...when did she find the time?  I am so blessed to have this dear girl for my daughter in love...

This is the back of it. Isn't it beautiful?  And it feels so nice and warm on my shoulders on these chilly, cloudy days.  What a thoughtful and beautiful gift from our thoughtful and beautiful daughter in love.

Back to special gifts...Here's another one created lovingly from our son and daughter in love:

I had seen a sign like that in a store and took a picture of it and told them that I liked it, and lo! and behold! They made it for me!

The "cozy up" theme seems to be catching on...

They also gave me this "cup of cozy" tea mug to go along with the sign and the cabin theme I am kind of developing here little by little.  

(the plate was something I found at our local flea market last year).

In my post HERE yesterday, I told you about the gift of the restored garden bench.  I thought there were some pictures taken of the boys with me after they set the bench down in the garden. They weren't in my camera,  so I asked Benton and Rose if they had them in their camera, and sure enough they did.

Thanks to Rose, who was standing up on the back porch taking these pictures, we do have them!

She was snapping pictures of Scott taking pictures of me on the bench: (LOL, look at him having fun with this)

Oh, we just discovered she was taking pictures...

Hi Rose! Come on down and join us!

I'm so thankful for these kids!

And thank you for praying for Rose. She is much better today finally, and hopefully will be able to go back to work tomorrow. And thankfully, none of the rest of us have gotten whatever bug she had. Praise God for that!! She was pretty sick! 

And I'm thankful for these "kids" too, happily playing with their new toys...

Talking about cozy, I took this picture looking inside the glass doors from out on the porch while I was watching the sunset.  I love how cozy the little train village looks beneath the tree...

Speaking of the train village, hubby and I received a couple of vintage Plasticville buildings to add to our little village from "Santa".  They are circa 1952 buildings, in their original very old and fragile boxes. Thankfully the buildings themselves are in excellent condition...

Hubby wanted the school house, and I do remember having that same building as a child in my parents' train village...

And this is a replacement for our train station building, because ours had a very badly cracked roof and the building was patched together with scotch tape and glue to keep it from falling apart.  

Here are the new buildings set up in the village:

The little red school house:

And the new train station:

Since I was down on the floor anyway, I decided to take a few more closeups of the other buildings in the village.  I had to scoot my way around the tree/village on the floor on my behind to get to all the places, and then, well, we won't talk about how much "FUN" it was for me to get back up again. Thankfully hubby wasn't holding the camera...

You can see some of these old buildings are still in need of some repair...but most of these are probably almost as old as I am, and I am in need of some repair too! LOL.

All is calm...all is bright...

I can almost see myself enjoying walking around in that peaceful little village. Wouldn't it be so nice?

"O little town of Bethlehem

How still we see thee lie

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep

The silent stars go by

Yet in thy dark streets shineth

The everlasting light

The hopes and fears of all the years

Are met in thee tonight

For Christ is born of Mary

And gathered all above

While mortals sleep, the angels keep

Their watch of wondering love

O morning stars together

Proclaim thy holy birth

And praises sing to God the King

And peace to men on earth

O little town of Bethlehem

How still we see thee lie

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep

The silent stars go by

Yet in thy dark streets shineth

The everlasting light

The hopes and fears of all the years

Are met in thee tonight"

Well, that's all for this third day of Christmas.  Tomorrow is another day, and maybe if I have time there will be something else interesting to share with you.  I've been enjoying getting around to reading what many of you have been sharing about your Christmas day. We are a blessed people. Very, very thankful, and praying for others who are struggling right now...the people in the mountains of the Carolinas and Tennessee especially. May we not forget them,  and do whatever we are able to do to help financially or whatever we can.