Here are some pictures of our house looking all Christmas-y...=)
I got a lot of razzing from family when I went to Vermont for Christmas about the "infrequentness" of my blog...but I'm not writing because of that...mainly I'm writing because its Christmas and I have a lot to say...
It's our first Christmas being married and we decided to spend it alone in our own home. In a way I miss the craziness of Christmas with 6 younger siblings (but we sorta had that a week ago anyway), and I sorta miss leaving my parents house to see other parts of the family for the afternoon, but there was also something really special about spending Christmas, just the two of us, resting.
We all know that Christmas is a season, and not just a day, but I've been wondering what the season really is...? Is it a season for shopping (one that starts with black friday and ends on Christmas eve)? Is it a season for baking (I know I've been doing that for a few weeks)? Is it a season for parties (we've been to so many between work and friends and family)? Is it a season for family (we certainly want to spend time with ours)? What is the season that surrounds this one day really all about? The church that Greg and I attend down here in Florida has been exploring this concept in the past month or so, and I think I may have begun to understand. Christmas is a season for giving...and I don't mean gifts of material quality (although that certainly does happen), it's a time for giving time, love, aid, care, kindness, and most of all, worship to a baby, born to be King eternally. Our church got really involved in a new way of looking at Christmas, and it has really affected Greg and I. Here are a few of the awesome organizations and ideas we got involved with:
www.adventconspiracy.org - check it out! An awesome new way to look at Christmas, not as a commercial, stressful, and expensive rush, but as a time to give love and worship!
http://www.water.cc/ - Living Water International is an awesome organization spreading Christ's love by bringing clean drinking water to the many places in the world who go without. We learned the horrifying statistic that every 15 seconds, a child dies from lack of clean drinking water. This means that while I sit and idle my time for 20 mins on facebook, 80 children, real live beautiful children, die. I can't even wrap my brain around that. Advent Conspiracy has partnered with this awesome organization to encourage people to cut down on Christmas spending, and instead build wells for these people. Although this horrific statistic seems unstoppable and overwhelming, I was encouraged to find out that $1 will provide clean drinking water for one person for a whole year!! This really makes me feel like I can make a difference! How awesome is that! Really put my $3.89 starbucks grande chai tea latte in perspective...sadly I didn't have to look up that price, I've bought enough of them to know exactly what they cost...
A few local projects our church has been involved in are Oasis Compassion International, a group dedicated to feeding the hungry of Palm Beach County, as well as a project which grew right out of our church, The Tree of Hope. The Tree of Hope was a tree set up in our church with paper ornaments all over it. Each ornament held the name of one of our community's homeless men and women or a member of our community's working poor, as well as an item that would bless them or satisfy one of their needs. There was overwhelming response in our church, and 89 gifts were collected and distributed.
One more awesome organization to check out> http://www.samaritanspurse.org/
Samaritan's Purse collects shoe boxes full of gifts for children living in poverty...it's an awesome way to get involved in a child's life at Christmas. This was one organization that I've been blessed to be involved with for years. My family always put together a shoe box each Christmas, and it was a fun time for my siblings and I to fill the box with things to share with someone.
Anyway, we've been really blessed to witness and be a part of some of these things this year, and I'm looking forward to seeing how much more involved we can get this coming year!
As far as our first Christmas was concerned, what a fun and restful day! We slept in, baked cookies, had baked potatoes for supper, and then had some cheese and crackers a little later while watching some free hulu shows. I'm not going to lie, I was a little sad to spend Christmas away from my family, but I got to talk to them on the phone...which resulted in some tears on my end after I hung up (thankfully I have a very sweet and understanding husband...I don't think he took it too personally). Here's a few pictures from our day:
Greg really enjoyed the frosting for those cookies...=)
As you may have noticed in the pictures...we did not have a real tree or a fake tree, we had our very own Charlie Brown Tree. It was a very cute little thing, and luckily Caleb gave us a little ornament for Christmas which was small enough to hang on our tiny potted tree.
Merry Christmas all...and may you truly know Christ's peace this year!!
Love, Greg and Anna
Ok, so I'll publicly confess that i'm one of the 'razzers' regarding blog updates. Nice job and thanks for the effort! And what a cozy Christmas! Of course, i think you could have made a few of those cookies while you were in VT so i could eat them.
ReplyDeleteThanks for pointing to those good organizations...seems like all of us fat obnoxious Americans could do better at Christmas time than just buying stuff for each other........the facts about the water were shocking. Its always so hard to know what to do: if you sell all you have and give it to the poor, you become one of the poor needing assistance, so that's no good for sustained help. But I'm sure we could all do more than we do, right?
Thanks for the post Anna and love to you both
Chris