Today Charis had her friend Drew over and they decorated GIANT gingerbread cookies. Pretty much they just wanted to eat the candies and lick the icing but by the end we did have a cookie to eat with a little encouragement of course! Check out their handy work!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? If I have a lot of time I love to wrap gifts! When I was little I always got to wrap gifts for my grandmother every year. I always wanted to wrap my own presents!
2. Real tree or artificial? Artificial is so much easier! When we bought real trees we always had “discussions” about which tree was “perfect” (I always felt sorry for the lonely trees that no one wanted).
3. When do you put up the tree? I always want to put up the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving but we do not always have time.
4. When do you take the tree down? Usually pretty quickly after Christmas as we are ready to return to a “normal” state of a crazy house!
5. Favorite gift received as a child? It is hard to pick just one! I was a huge fan of my slide when I was really little! I also got a pair of roller skates one year as well as a huge Barbie mansion also which I loved!!!

6. Do you have a nativity scene? Yep! I have quite a few! They are probably some of my favorite things to put out at Christmas! I have many memories of always setting up the nativity scene at my grandmothers house. Charis loves to go around and look at baby Jesus!
7. Hardest person to buy for? The men in the family!!! No question!
8. Easiest person to buy for? Me!!! (Wrong I know, but oh so true!)
9. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? There are bad Christmas gifts?
10. Mail or Email Christmas cards? MAIL!!! Everyone needs a little snail mail! Plus it makes your mailbox cheery!
11. Favorite Christmas Movie? Decisions…Love Little Women but it is not specifically Christmas it just feels like Christmas! I love the Rudolf movies as well as the little claymation Little Drummer Boy!
12. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Oh my, whenever the wind blows the right direction…sometimes months before sometimes weeks before!
13. Have you ever recycled a Christmas gift? Not so much recycled but gave friends and family their choice of the goodies that we could not use. We don’t keep things at our house that we don’t use…this ends up biting us for those White Elephant parties!
14. Favorite things to eat at Christmas? When I was little my grandmother made wonderful Carmel Pies. Now my favorite is probably mashed potatoes.
15. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Clear although there is something about the colored lights that makes you feel like a little child!
16. Favorite Christmas song? Star of Wonder or Silent Night
17. Travel at Christmas or stay home? We stay home because all of our family is here (except for a few). I always think that traveling would be so much fun though!
18. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? Dasher, Dancer Prancer, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, Rudolf (of course)…just Googled it and it seems that I left off poor Vixen and good ole’ Rudolf isn’t really included (at least according to Wikipedia)!

19. Angel on the top of the tree or star? Star! I love our star! It is way to small for our tree but it is made from a ruined quilt so it seems extra special to go with our eclectic tree.
20. Open presents Christmas Eve or morning? Whenever they will let me open the presents I open them! We actually do both as we celebrate with my family Christmas Eve, our family Christmas morning and Brad’s family Christmas day.
21. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Feeling stressed about accomplishing everything that I want to and loosing site of Christ birth!
22. What is the “silliest” family tradition that you do, or miss doing? I miss putting out cookies for Santa!
23. Ugliest Christmas decoration ever invented? It isn’t the ugliest but it is “special”…we have a Christmas duck that quacks Christmas songs and he isn’t really a normal looking duck as he is made out of green garland looking stuff. He is well loved at our house! I think he is pretty funny! We have had to preform surgery on him to hot glue some of his garland back on and he really doesn’t quack like he use to either. Oh, I forgot that his wings flap as well. (Went to take a picture of him and found that he is MIA…hmmm)
24. Which looks best, theme trees or homey trees? I like some peoples theme trees but I really like our homey tree as this year we are getting to share many memories of our ornaments with Charis and it just fits us.
25. Gingerbread or sugar cookies? SUGAR!
26. Do you like Fruitcake? Ya know, I have never had it because so many people told me that they did not like it. I am pretty sure that by this point I will never try it as well. Sad, I know!
27. Do you like Eggnog? Nope, although I am not sure if I have ever had this either but it just doesn’t seem right.
28. Open gifts carefully or rip? I am a total ripper although I do try to start out opening it gently then I give up half way through.

29. Which is your favorite ornament? Brad received an ornament that says, “JOY” the Christmas before I was born. That has become one of my favorites. Silly, I know but I think that it is pretty neat-o!
30. Best Christmas gift that you have received? Christ! - For unto us is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord Luke 2:11

Savoring the season has been a little bit of a battle this year but yet easy at the same time. An odd combination I know! The kiddos and I have been sick a bit so this has caused us to slow down which has been a sweet thing even though it has been hard. I am attempting a handmade holiday for our family which has been stressful but I have realized that somethings just are not going to be done exactly like I have hoped and I have accepted this as I always think a little grander than I have time for. Sewing has given me a lot of sweet time to think which has been a true gift of this season. The list is growing shorter and Christmas cards are feverishly (literally and figuratively) being worked on but I have made myself sit and hand write on all of them. This has given me time yet again to savor the people the Lord has placed in our lives and those that share a chapter in my story that God is writing! What a gift! I hope that you are able to savor little moments in this season of Christmas realizing the greatest Gift of all!!!

We are pretty much officially decorated! Everything pretty much found its place the weekend after Thanksgiving but we had put off decorating the tree as time was just not permitting until last night. I must say though I always think that there is something so lovely and simplistic about a lighted tree without the ornaments…then I put on the ornaments and think that it is even lovelier! After dinner last night we all helped decorate the tree and I must say that Miss Charis dearly loved each and every ornament that came out of the box. It was like a huge wonderful box of gems! She picked the branches that the ornaments went on although Brad and I did choose a few different branches for the more breakable ornaments. This was our decision after she found one of the large glass balls and started throwing it around on the carpet! She has pretty much settled on two favorite ornaments for now I believe. There is a little girl holding a cat on a swing that was mine when I was a little girl and she loves to go up and swing the ornament on the branch. We also have a little bird that Brad gave me one year for Christmas which Charis loves to kiss. It is pretty sweet! I think that she could spend the whole afternoon just looking at the ornaments. Each day after nap she wants to come downstairs and turn on the Christmas tree lights. It is so much fun to see the wonder and marvel in her eyes! It has been neat to use many of the decorations to share with her about Jesus and just why it is that we celebrate Christmas.

We just had our second annual Gingerbread House (Candy House…the homes are made of wood) decorating competition. Okay, it isn’t really a competition but it is a TON of fun! Last year we were invited to a friends house for this fun festive evening in which they had made all the homes. This year those friends are quite with child (due any day…hopefully) but we were all really wanting to have the second annual so we decided to do it as a small group at a different house. Since we had all saved our houses from last year we were set! We each brought several bags of candy, ordered pizza and decorated the night away. Some of us (not to name any names) did cheat and added a few store bought doll house accessories as well as a ice skating pond (made with a little food coloring and glue). Here are some of the fun pictures from the evening! Enjoy!

The completed homes…

The day after Thanksgiving I received my Bag-O-Christmas Cheer! There is just something that I love about a bag of goodies where I do not know what all the goodies are. It is the most tempting thing to me! The only way that I have found to explain it to Brad is that it is like a big Easter Basket where you get to go through to find all sorts of goodies! There is just something in me that loves the surprise and the hunt! The bag was packaged so happily and there were all kinds of wonderful goodies in there to get my creative juices flowing. I am not sure what everything will become exactly but I am excited to play (after I finish tackling Christmas gifts of course…maybe). Also included in the bag was a fun little ornament and a beautiful handmade stocking. Thanks again Sandi for the bag-o-cheer!

The Rest Of God: Restoring Your Soul By Restoring Sabbath
By: Mark Buchanan