Advent Week Two

Yesterday was the 2nd Sunday of Advent, and the role of the Shepherds at the birth of Christ was remembered:

"In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid; for see--I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.'" Luke 2:8-10

Today we remember the shepherds, workers for the common good, steadfast watchmen isolated and alone, far from the warmth of home, doing the job no one wants. And yet God saw them, God valued them, and God declared the greatest news of all to them alone.

People: Today we give thanks for the shepherds among us, back-breaking laborers on whom our economy stands, those we overlook or rarely see, yet rely on for our very survival, the ones who have much to teach us about watching for God in the darkness.

On this second Sunday of Advent, we light the second candle as a symbol of the shepherds, agents of the gospel and redeemers of the world.

(picture taken in church following the service)

Our choir sang a beautiful song entitled "Gesu Bambino".  This was recorded at our rehearsal, and although it's pretty good, I think we did better on Sunday morning. It was a difficult song to sing for our little choir, but I pray the message was clear.  Following the song, our pastor preached an excellent message from Matthew 1:18-25, "What Dreams May Come", the story of Joseph, the betrothed husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Gesu Bambino

When blossoms flower e'er 'mid the snows

Upon a winter night

Was born the Child, the Christmas Rose

The King of Love and Light

The angels sang, the shepherds sang

The grateful earth rejoiced;

And at His blessed birth the stars

Their exultation voiced

Chorus:

O come let us adore Him

O come let us adore Him

O come let us adore Him

Christ the Lord

Again the heart with rapture glows

To greet the holy night

That gave the world its Christmas Rose

Its King of Love and Light

Let ev'ry voice acclaim His name

The grateful chorus swell

From paradise to earth He came

That we with Him might dwell

Chorus:

O come let us adore Him

O come let us adore Him

O come let us adore Him

Christ the Lord

Was born the Child, the Christmas Rose

The King of Love and Light

It was a wonderful service. I love this Advent season...

Wow! That speaks volumes! Jesus came with one mission in mind...to save us from our sins! Pure and simple. All we have to do is accept His free gift of salvation and we will be saved! It's really that simple...but we tend to make it so hard. He did the hard work for us. We just need to believe. 

When we got home from church we were pleased to find that our son Scott had arrived.  Benton also came over and had lunch with us, as Rose had to go to work.  So the boys had fun figuring out the problem with the train, and Scott finally got it running again!

Here's a video of it in action! Yay!

I'm adding this old picture from 1980 of our three sons playing with that same train set and village. There may be a few extra buildings there, and I think they had just had a major crash when this picture was taken, but that's what they loved to do the most. It's a miracle there are any train cars left in one piece! LOL.

L to R: Matthew, Scott, and Benton

These are precious memories especially since our son Matthew is no longer with us, but if there are trains in heaven, I imagine he and his Grandpa are having a good time.

My Dad "Grandpa "Choo-Choo", Matthew, and his son Noah, our grandson, who is now 25 years old. This was my dad's train collection,  but I've shared this before. I wanted to add it here, just because...

Moving on to a different subject, I know you all love to see The Sand Hill Crane Family.  So do I.  Here they are finding something good to eat in the pond...

When I see them lined up like this together at this time of year, I always think of them as being the Three Wise Men riding on their camels. If you watched them walking along, you'd see what I mean...

They ended up in our front yard...

And sure enough, they headed straight for the Nativity:

"We Three Kings of Orient Are...bearing gifts, we traverse afar...field and fountain, moor and mountain,

Following yonder star...O-Oh, Star of wonder, star of light, star with royal beauty bright, westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to that perfect Light..."

I just thought that was pretty cool!! They seemed pretty curious about what all this new stuff was in our front yard!  

Speaking of the front yard, here's the sunrise from this morning...

And this is the sunset tonight over Still Waters Pond:

These last two pictures were taken from the back yard of that new house next door, which is still available, in case you are interested...BTW, I believe they have recently reduced the price too! What a great Christmas present this could be to yourselves!  (and me too, if you became my neighbor!)

This week is going to be a bit busy...we already had Bible study today, tomorrow morning we hope to go do some Christmas shopping, tomorrow night is choir practice, Wednesday is our church ladies' Christmas luncheon, which is always very nice and fun, Thursday night we are going to a church in a nearby community for a Candlelight and Carols service, which is always nice. Our choir will sing a couple of songs.  Friday...I don't think we have anything planned YET, and I hope we can keep it that way, at least not anything too time or energy consuming...maybe just play catch-up here at home.  There is a monthly "Agape" luncheon at church on Saturday, which is a pot luck luncheon just for fellowship with anyone who wants to come. I'm not sure yet if we will do that or not. And that brings us to Sunday, which is always a busy, but wonderful day. 

I still haven't started on my Christmas cards...although I did buy Christmas postage stamps today, so that was a start (and a shock at how much postage is now!) I'm not promising that I will be sending a LOT of cards this year...I usually try to send to people that I don't communicate with as much during the year on Facebook or otherwise...relatives that we try to stay in touch with at least once a year, and old friends we only catch up with at Christmas...and then after that we will see. 

I love all of you who are so good about getting your cards out already and to so many of us fellow bloggers. You are the best group of friends ever!  I hope you won't be hurt if I don't manage to send cards to everyone. Time will tell what I can and can't do, but please know that I love you all and enjoy reading about your activities here all the time.  I feel like I know many of you better than I know a lot of my "old friends" and "family".  They just don't communicate as well as we do here in blogland.

Well friends, I guess I need to wrap this up. Tomorrow is the Tuesday 4 meme, and I need to look at that and see what I haven't already told you. LOL. But that will be another post...if I can find the time to get it done!  One thing about the Christmas season, we sure do stay busy!

Closing with a few pictures from the Christmas angels and small nativities...

(porch tree)

"Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o'er the plains...

And the mountains in reply, echo back their joyous strains...

Gloria in excelsis deo

Gloria in excelsis deo!

Gloria in excelsis De-e-o!

Amen!

Friday Foto Friends! Decking the Halls...

 
"Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la la la la la! 'Tis the season to be jolly!

There's the "finished product", but still some tweaking to do on a few things on the village.

Hello Friends!  I know, it's Friday already, and I haven't written anything since Tuesday! What's this world coming to?  LOL.  Yes, I am still alive and kicking...but I've been quite preoccupied with getting our Christmas tree decorated and all of the trimmings around the house.  I managed to squeeze what should have been at least a week's job into three days.  My goal was to have it all done by Thursday evening, when our "kids" (a.k.a. Benton and Rose and the grandpups) were coming over to have supper and help set up the train and village under the tree. (Our new family tradition over the past three or four years, except this time Rose actually brought the food!! Yay!)  

We started out on Tuesday when Benton came over to help bring all the plastic totes of decor and the very heavy box with the tree into the house for us. That was a wonderful help.

I wish it was still this simple:

Those were simpler, happier days...

This is how far I had gotten on the tree on Tuesday:  Our tree is 20+ years old, and is the kind you have to insert every branch into the pole manually, and of course add your own lights. Every year I say we are going to get a new tree that is easier to work with, but every year we put this same tree back up. It still looks beautiful once it is put together, but the manual labor involved is becoming more than my back can handle, and it just never has been something hubby was involved in...so the days of doing this every year may be numbered...plus it is dropping as many needles as a dead pine tree...

I didn't get much else done on Tuesday as I had choir practice that night, and we are practicing for our Christmas Cantata, so that took care of that night as far as having any energy to do anything else goes!

Our carolers are practicing their Christmas songs...

"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, let heaven and nature sing!"

I did take this picture in the narthex of the church Tuesday night. Isn't this display beautiful? That is a manger at the foot of the cross, and on Christmas Eve the "Baby Jesus" will be placed in the manger.

I'm especially "proud" of this display because our son Benton built that cross for the church a few years ago so they would have it to use for displays at Christmas and Easter. So that makes it extra special to me to see it there. Our church secretary does an excellent job of decorating the church each year.

Our Baby Jesus in our Nativity scene at home is already in the manger...I guess some people don't put the baby in the manger until Christmas Eve, but I like having Him there to remind us that "Jesus is the Heart of the Holiday".

Wednesday morning I still didn't get much done on decorating at home as we both had lab appointments and that always means we go out to breakfast afterwards.  We ended up at a "deli/cafe'" in Palatka, but it wasn't our first choice of place because the one we wanted was packed and no place to park.  This place was also busy, but we did find a parking place, so in we went.

Hubby was happy with his breakfast...especially the biscuits.

I wish I'd gotten what he ordered. My potatoes were very dry and tasteless, the eggs were overcooked, and the toast really wasn't all that great either. And the place was freezing! 

(It was a rather chilly day for us here in Florida)

I sound like I'm really a complainer, don't I? I guess I was on this subject...the breakfast just wasn't very satisfying and it cost more than we wanted to spend. Next time we will come back to our own little town and eat at our local cafe'. Their food is always good!! And the price is better too!

However, I am thankful we were able to do this at all. I realize my problems are 1st world problems. I am also thankful to have my hubby to sit across the table from me and lovingly listen to my complaints without criticism. I am blessed to have him, and blessed to live in a place where we have these kinds of choices and places to go (or not go!) And also, the tea was nice and hot and holding the cup warmed my freezing hands! So that was a good thing to be thankful for.

Thinking about hot tea...This chrome (no it's not silver) tea set belonged to hubby's grandmother and was a special gift to her many years ago. I feel very blessed to have this, among many other things that belonged to her. She was a dear and precious Christian woman who had a profound impact on my hubby as well as on my life in the short time that I was privileged to know her.

It usually sits on the buffet, which also belonged to her (Nanny Martin), but has been moved to the kitchen so that the Nativity Set could be placed on the buffet.

Oh hello! I see I made a cameo appearance on this picture! LOL.

Speaking further about tea cups, here's the tea cup tree set up, along with some angels singing and little nativities and churches.

I had to move this lamp that usually sits on that table above to the guest room temporarily while the Christmas decorations are set up. It looks nice there, but I can't see it unless I go in there to look at it, so it will get moved back to the kitchen window after the holidays. 

But meanwhile, it makes me want to "visit" the guest room more often and just enjoy the view. However, very soon this room will be taken over with gifts waiting to be wrapped! The guest room becomes gift wrapping central in the weeks before Christmas!

Speaking of churches...Among those many totes of decorations was this beautiful little white church that lights up and has "snow" swirling around inside. It was a gift a couple of years ago.  Isn't it lovely?

So finally we make our way to Thursday:

The "kids" came to help set up the train set and village.  The grandpups Sugar and Spice are supervising Benton setting up the train tracks.

Hubby "Daddy" is also supervising:  (Remember, when you get old, you can't get down on the floor like you used to be able to, and if you DO get down on the floor, you may not get back up, so it's better to have some "younger folks" come do the on the floor stuff for us while they are still young enough to do it.  

And not only did Rose cook an amazing beef stew for our supper, she came and helped me "build" all these houses and buildings for the train village:

Even that is a labor of love, let me tell you!  These "Plasticville" buildings are probably older than I am, and they don't snap together anymore like they are supposed to do, (much like my old body! LOL) so we end up taping them to hold them in place. We could glue them, but then they would be harder to store and would get broken more easily. So we do the best we can with them. It's a "family tradition" passed down to us from my father from his father...a train village was always under their trees when my dad grew up. He collected Lionel trains and had quite an elaborate display at their house until he got too old to play with it anymore and sold most of it to collectors so the family wouldn't have to deal  with it.  I have mixed emotions about that, but it was for the best...

Click HERE for a previous post with  the history of trains in our family.

We finally got the village all set up, but for some reason Benton couldn't get the train to work properly. So we set it aside for now until Scott comes home on the weekend, and hopefully he can figure out what the problem is. He seems to have the electrical gene to figure things out.  

I still have some tweaking to do on the village, trying to get the lights inside the buildings without destroying the buildings, things like that.  It's hard to do when you can't get down on the floor and have an even harder time getting back up...but we already discussed that. LOL.

Finally all the decorating is done.  Sure, there will be little things here and there that get changed or moved around as needed, but the main work is done and now I can sit back and just enjoy the beauty of the lights and the little scenes of Christmas everywhere, and prepare my heart for the celebration of the birth of our Savior and Lord...  

As we said good bye to the kids last night on the front porch, I took pictures of the little grapevine tree that we put out there each year...

We don't go all out with lots of outdoor decorations because we just don't have the energy, the electricity connections out front, and besides, we prefer to keep it the simple real message of Christmas:

Tonight I went back outside to look at the lights, and saw a great light up in the sky above:

It's a crescent moon, but you can also see a star or planet off in the distance, and it is really beautiful.

I took this picture from the back porch:

Made me think about the Star of David over Bethlehem that led the Magi to find the child Jesus and bring him gifts.

"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"

Now, just for the fun of it, these are some "outtakes" of pictures that I accidentally took or blurred or something while trying to take all these pictures...mostly the ones outside. Not sure what was going on, but thought you'd enjoy seeing them anyway. Especially I thought our friend Sandra, "MadSnapper" would appreciate them.  She loves crazy stuff like this, right Sandra?   LOL.

The Angel Appeared to the Shepherds to announce Jesus' Birth, and they were "sore afraid".

The Heavenly Host of  Angels singing Glory to God in the Highest!

Use your own imagination to figure them out!

The Three Wise Men traveling across the desert for two years to find the Baby King that was born in Bethlehem

They followed the star to Bethlehem, and the star stood above the house where the child Jesus was, and they brought Him gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh:

"God rest ye merry gentlemen

Let nothing you dismay

Remember Christ our Savior

Was born on Christmas Day

To save us all from Satan's pow'r

When we were gone astray

Oh tidings of comfort and joy

Comfort and joy

Oh tidings of comfort and joy

God rest ye merry gentlemen

Let nothing you dismay

Remember Christ our Savior

Was born on Christmas Day

To save us all from Satan's pow'r

When we were gone astray

Oh tidings of comfort and joy

Comfort and joy

Oh tidings of comfort and joy

In Bethlehem, in Israel

This blessed Babe was born

And laid within a manger

Upon this blessed morn

The which His Mother Mary

Did nothing take in scorn

Oh tidings of comfort and joy

Comfort and joy

Oh tidings of comfort and joy

Fear not then, said the Angel

Let nothing you affright

This day is born a Savior

Of a pure Virgin bright

To free all those who trust in Him

From Satan's pow'r and might

Oh tidings of comfort and joy

Comfort and joy

Oh tidings of comfort and joy

God rest ye merry gentlemen

Let nothing you dismay

Remember Christ our Savior

Was born on Christmas Day

To save us all from Satan's pow'r

When we were gone astray

Oh tidings of comfort and joy

Comfort and joy

Oh tidings of comfort and joy"

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Avriel Kaplan / Ben Bram / Kevin Olusola / Kirstin Maldonado / Mitchell Grassi / Scott Hoying / Traditional

So from our house to yours, Have blessed and beautiful Christmas/Advent season!