Merry Christmas!

John 1:1-5 and 14
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it....And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

"Jingle-Bell Time is a Swell Time..." :)

Hi guys! I'm sorry for lack of posting, but this Christmas season is super busy for us all, but especially Mama! And since I am the oldest girl, of course that makes me busy too! :) I have been trying to do a post with pictures for several days, but Blogger won't let me upload them! It shows me a little code that says "javascript (0)" or something, and anyhow, it doesn't work! :)

It has been a funny sort of Christmas season for us, and it took me *way* too long, but finally, I'm getting in the Christmas spirit! :) Wanna know some of the things that got me going? (Besides the knowledge that Jesus' birthday is soon, and hearing the whole stunning story again!)

• Hearing any Burl Ives, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, (etc.) Christmas song. It's gotta be from back then to give me warm-fuzzies! ;)
• Watching "Eloise At Christmastime"
• Wrapping my presents and sticking them under the tree
• Being let in on a Christmas secret, and firmly believing it is the most serious thing that must be kept on pain of death, but devising all sorts of dangerous clues in the meantime! :)
• Doing Advent as a family
• reading "Shepherds Abiding" by Jan Karon
• working late to finish a present or two
  
• Sitting late at night and feeling my eyes grow droopy as I gaze at our Christmas tree (though I find this works best the years we use colored lights)
• Wearing red
• Seeing and eating one of Sarah's *adorable* gingerbread men
  
• dancing to "Jingle Bell Rock" and "All I Want For Christmas Is You" to make the younger kids shocked ;) (They actually crack up laughing at my antics, it's so not me! :)

So now there is only one thing missing to make my Gearing-Up-For-Christmas complete! :) And that would be going Christmas Shopping with Daniel!!!! That will fully put me over the edge into Christmas-dom! :) You might remember my Christmas-Shopping-With-Daniel post last year... :) I just re-read it, and it made me laugh! All of my shopping is done except Dad and Mama's gifts...I need to get thinking! But since they love anything we give them, that shouldn't be too hard! :)

A Simple Math Equation

25-15=10 Days til Christmas!!!!! :)

and I don't know about the rest of you, but I have a *lot* of work to do!
-Sarah

A Christmas Letter From Us Two

If you remember our Title Tale from a while back, you'll probably love this, too! :)

Ye Merry Gentlemen, It came upon a midnight clear:

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me the Holly and the Ivy. 'Cause Good King Wenceslas Saw Three Ships come sailing in and Hark the herald angel sings, "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas". O come, all ye faithful! Here we go a-wassailing to... Oh... Little Town of Bethlehem. We three kings from orient are walking in a winter wonderland and rocking around the Christmas tree. I'll be home for Christmas with Silver and Gold, so Let It Snow. Christmastime is Here, Frosty the Snowman! Angels, we have heard on high that Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer had a Blue Christmas. And Mary, Did you know that it's Christmas in Killarney? Jingle Bells Rock and Sleigh bells ring on our Sleigh Ride. It's been a Silent Night, except that Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.
All I want for Christmas:
-Is you
-I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas
-All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth

But....I'm Getting Nothin' for Christmas. :(

We're Dreaming of a White Christmas,
~Rachel and Sarah

Deck the Halls! :)

I am getting so excited about Christmas! This is a time of year full of traditions, so maybe that's why we love it so much! :) Yesterday the girls sweetly decluttered all the surfaces so that we could decorate today! Yay! :) Hopefully Sarah will take lots of pictures of our tree decorating so that we can do a fun post and you can see our tree! I've discovered there are 3 kinds of tree decorators:
~The Elegant Beauty
~The Cram-As-Much-As-You-Can-Just-To-Be-Glitzy
~The Cram-As-Much-As-You-Can-Because-It-All-Has-Memories

We belong to the latter version. Our tree always looks like it belongs to a large family. First it is wrapped from the inside out with lights. Then we have legions of paper ornaments made by eight little hands over the years, mixing with elegant glass balls. We have lopsided pine-straw hearts hanging proudly beside olive-wood ornaments from Israel. There is a Christmas Pickle hidden somewhere in the branches. There are the little tin marching band people to hang up, the floppy little fabric music note that must have it's story told every year to the youngest family members who do not remember. There is the beautiful pearly blue glass ball to take out of it's velvet case, and the crystal dove with the olive branch to carefully hand to Mama to hang up. Then of course, amongst all the finery, we string popcorn and cranberries, and red and green wooden beads. We perch gold-painted pine-cones here and there. We older ones find the ornaments an old baby-sitter gave to us, and try to remember her. (I never could!) :)
To an outsider, and especially the "Elegant Beauty" tree person, our tree looks like mayhem. But it is a tree filled with precious memories and love. A tree that represents 22 years of family life. It's our tree, and has changed very little (barring the introduction of even *more* paper ornaments) over my whole life. And there's something extremely comforting in that knowledge, you know? :) We love our tree, and valiantly guard it against tinsel, and I hope that even people who are more particular about their decorating, can see that our tree is not a work of art, but a history of our family. Just as colorful, varied, and homey as we are :) ~Rachel

Just Hear Those Sleigh Bells Ring-a-ling...Well, not yet!

It may not be time yet for Christmas music, but in our home, the Christmas spirit is already lurking around in every corner! In past years, Dad has forbidden the listening to or singing of Christmas songs until the day after Thanksgiving. But this year we moved the date to the Wilson's turkey-pick-up day! :) So for about 4 days now, we've been singing Christmas songs, outside of choir! But all that to say, I *know* Christmas does not start until after Thanksgiving! Nevertheless, I am already plotting gifts to give to people! I make many of the gifts I give, and the rest, I am going to buy thriftily! :) But I am not a cheap person. I hate giving felt-covered tin cans and telling people it's a pencil holder! ;) So rest assured, all the gifts will be the best my little self can think up, aided and abetted by an unexpected Christmas bonus from my boss! ;) (Dad! :)
The only irritation is that I can't post about my ideas till after Christmas when no one wants to hear them! :P Oh but this is the season of the year I might love best of all! (I say that each month, don't I?)
The music, the smells, the sights, the traditions, and the waiting! But most of all, I love advent, which I will talk more about! Or you can go to Daniel's blog and read his awesome Advent posts from last year! :) Ha! You know what song is playing? ♫"I'm doing my Christmas dreaming a little early this year"!♫ :P I guess it's fitting! :D Oh mercy! I'm so excited! At choir this afternoon Maryanna and I plotted gifts and and fun things like that! I'm hoping to get some good deals with Daniel when he takes us (hopefully) Black Friday shopping! :) ~Rachel

In The Wake of Christmastide

Merry Christmas! We have spent a nice, leisurely day here at home! The Walkers are in Penn. so Grandmama and Grandaddy came over for the day, and the delicious smells are wafting through the house as we all prepare a lovely feast! The sometimes disagreeable job of bread-making seems always to fall to the eldest daughter! I sometimes like making bread, but it is rather like having a toddler to watch, because you must baby-sit the bread dough and that can be tiresome. But in the end it is worth it! For some strange and unknown reason we girls avoid making bread and cutting lettuce for a salad like the plague! We haven't figured out why! We didn't wake up this morning till 6:52 which is an hour and a half later than usual Christmas mornings! Then we had to do a bunch of various tasks like eat breakfast, set up cameras, marinate a venison roast, wrap a couple presents and things of that sort before we really could get going! We did a lovely advent time before opening gifts! And Daniel read us the Christmas story as usual before we opened our stockings. I love the tradition of putting Christ's birth first before anything else! From Dad and Mama I (Rachel) got a stamp and sealing wax sticks, a new wallet, an herbal set-up, (complete with the shot glasses I asked for to mix up tinctures in. I found during our bout with illness recently that they would be ideal for dosing people!) and a cameo pendant. Then Daniel gave me the new Susan Boyle c.d.
(a Scottish woman with an amazing voice. But they do a strange thing. On several songs they mix her voice with an African-American choir I believe, and it just seems strange since her voice is so classically opera. But it is really pretty.)
Sarah made me a hopechest book like Alaina did for Morgan's graduation. Leah gave me a volume of four Jane Austen books, Anna made me jewelry, Benj. gave me a box of tea, Abby made me soap, and Gracie gave me a kiss. :) Then Grandmama gave me such a great gift! When I put this on my list I hadn't the foggiest idea that she would do it! She made me an absolutely beautiful cloak and muff to match my Civil War dress, and she is working on a bonnet to go with it! The cloak is of a sort of black velvet with red trim and lined with red silk. Then the collar is a woolly white sort of thing to match the muff! I am so excited! I would take pictures, but our camera doesn't do that sort of thing well at all! (I don't mean to boast about my gifts at all! It is just that in a large family, you get more presents since everyone else wants to bless each member of the family! Count- that's seven extra gifts!)
I also had alot of fun watching people open the presents I gave them! Daniel had winkled his gift out! (Shame on him! :) and Sarah loved her's. I wrote her a story called "A Tale of Fairfax and Cloves". Which is about two middle-aged sisters who run a general store. Their names are Dolly and Cecelia Fairfax. Anyhoo! We love giving hints to our presents. And really random hints at that. Leah's hint for the Austen books was "Chicken". Because on a little kid's show there is a chicken named Jane, and Jane Austen wrote the books. Then Daniel's hint for me was "tiger-pits". Now keep in mind that the gift was a c.d. The explanation? When a very small girl Sarah had a dream about tiger-pits, and on the c.d. there is a track titled, "I Dreamed a Dream."
But I got him back by telling him that his hint from me was "Dragon". (I made him Welsh cakes) The explanation for that? The Walkers have a bumper-sticker that says," The Welsh never die, they just drag-on" and it has a picture of a dragon. Touche! ;)
We are rather strange sometimes! :) My hint for Sarah was "Spice cabinet". Anyway, I'm sure you are tired of hearing about our Christmas! We are looking forward to delivering gifts to some friends tomorrow! And hosting church on Sunday! Well, I must go hie away and check on that dependent little lump of bread dough! It can do nothing for itself! :) -Rachel

Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas Eve-Eve! :)

Hello to everyone this day: Christmas Eve Eve! (As Eloise would say) Wow! We have had such a busy December! Daniel and I, after working, stayed out Christmas shopping until 10:30! He did all the buying, including dinner (well, Dad payed for dinner) All my shopping is done. Actually, I made almost everything. The point is, even if it wasn't all done I haven't a dime to my name. I am in debt to Daniel for his birthday present! Isn't that awful!?! So I enjoyed just tagging along and giving advice, counseling Daniel as he went about with a 'craft store" headache, (he automatically gets one if we go into any crowded store full of smells.) and generally making myself useful. But I must confess- I felt terribly naughty. Pra'aps Santa might mark me off his list;) because when we were in Best Buy, I took advantage of their model computers with the super fast internet, and looked at the blogs and all the videos on them that our computer lately won't show. If I had really been looking for a computer to buy it I wouldn't have felt so bad. But anyhow, when a store lady was glancing my way, I hurried to finish posting a comment on Abigail's blog, and that is why it is all misspelled! :)
I was rather a mess last night. I almost stepped on a man who was crouched on the floor behind me looking at something on a low shelf. I really would have squashed him if he hadn't said, "Watch out! I crept up on you hon!" (I really can't stand it when people who have no clue who I am called me "hon". It creeps me out!)
But we got home and stayed up too late talking with Mama and Sarah. (Dad was still out shopping.) I have two random things now. The first is a question I posed to Daniel while in the car yesterday. Because I am already 17, would I say I am in my eighteenth year of life? And the next is, all the ladies I know but one who have been pregnant this year have delivered at least 3 weeks early! -Rachel

Musings of a Merry Christmas

Due to some sickness around church, and the fact that no other families are prepared to host church, there is just going to be no church today! That means this will be a nice, relaxing sort of day. Perfect for working on Christmas presents. Only the last two presents I must make are for Dad and Daniel, and they will be home. So nix that idea! Last night we decorated our tree finally! It seems so strange to put it up only 6 days from Christmas, but I'm really glad we still have one! Okay! It has been a long time since I've done a post of any substance, so I thought I'd do one that was a bit deeper than "Ho-hum, I hate chia pets!" ;)
So saying.... Merry Christmas! (And yes, I meant Merry Christmas. Not Happy Holidays or Season's Greetings!) when I put all the Christmas presents I had made for people under the tree, I was so excited, thinking about when each person opened the one I had made especially for them. I think homemade presents are the best kind, because since you spend even hours making the gift for someone, you are thinking about them the whole time. And since you must work for the present, there is a whole process of thinking what this person delights in, what they like doing, etc. Anyhow, I was getting excited over several (I love when gifts turn out!) and then a thought crossed mind, that I am sure was God speaking to me, "This is how God must have felt sending us his son Jesus1" Can't you imagine Him smiling happily each time a person stopped to admire His handiwork? Don't you think He was thrilled when a person realized who this baby really was? This tiny child was the way that God had planned before time to save us all. Can you imagine the excitement that must have been God's as he watched Jesus's life unfold? He knew the whole time that this was His present to all of the world, and He was so joyful at the thought of the wonder we would be filled with when we hear of such a plan!
But you know, have you ever given somebody a gift that you can tell they didn't like? Or they didn't even bother to open the card that you carefully watercolored yourself? Such disappointment the Lord must have felt when His children threw his Gift in the dust, stepped on Him, spit on Him, and complained that God had "forgotten them on their birthday and didn't care enough about them to give them a gift." Here was a beautiful Savior for the world living in their midst, telling them God's plan, yet all we could do was pitch a fit because this Gift was not wrapped in shiny paper with a big silver bow. No. God's gift to us on that Christmas morning, and for all time was wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Not under a Christmas tree. Let's please try to remember in the excitement of giving to others, the pleasure it must give God when we praise Him for His gift. Because I'm telling you straight up. If you don't recognize that Jesus was the ultimate gift that anyone could ever give, than your priorities are askew! Merry Christmas!
-Rachel

Hallo-Bonjour-ummm.... Hi?

Howdy Do to You and You! It's Me it's Me it's Ernest T.! (I couldn't resist ;)

No. Actually, it is Rachel. This post will be interesting because it ought to be something grand and glorious for the first post in this awe-inspiring month. But then, I think all the grand and gloriousness in our family has gone to Daniel who is doing a great job with the Advent posts.
In the first place, it took me awhile to figure out that it really was December. (I had to use that little rhyme that I've known since forever: 30 days hath September, April, June, and November, all the rest has 31, `cepting February alone, which has 28 rain or shine, and in leap-year 29!) Okay! So anyhow, our lovely December has started off perfectly (for this area) with a heavy frost! I love frost! It transforms the plainest thing into a thing of beauty! One of the prettiest sights I've seen is a blackberry vine and leave covered in frost. I would have frosted things like that all over my wedding cake if I could! (And if I was married in the fall!) You could probably do the same thing but with sugar instead of real frost. I think I heard of someone who wants to be married in the winter so that they can run outside after the ceremony, and have a snow-ball fight in their wedding dress! But I don't know why I went off on a wedding tangent! :)
December is probably my favorite month of the year in the sense of all that we do!
Advent has already been raptured over and you'd get tired of hearing me do that, so I think I will talk about a couple of our Christmas traditions maybe!?
Okay, but this has gotta be quick because I am working with Dad today and he wants to get out earlyish.
I start making and collecting presents early, as does Sarah, so the moment after the Christmas tree is put up, she and I have a mad dash to see who can wrap a present and have the dignity of putting the first present under the treee! (psst! Don't tell her but I'll prewrap mine this year and then get a head start! ;) Anyway, it is rather fun! Another cool tradition (At least to me) is that we set up our manger scene as a family. We kids and Dad bought her the Willow Tree set a couple years ago, so that has taken the presedence over a traditional set that she had had since she got married. (I am now asking for the old one for my hopechest for Christmas! :)
Mama sits on the couch and hands us the figures one at a time. We then carefully position them around a little creche that Daniel made for her. The Three Kings always are put the farthest they can be away from the creche, but I don't think it would take them 2 years to cross the table-top! The youngest of us, whoever that may have been that year, gets to put Baby Jesus up there. I always wanted to put the pretty angel with the blond hair and crimson dress up. Mary wasn't quite as pretty! ;) I had a weather eye for pretty things back then and still do! :) But I like Mary just the same!
Okay! Here's how it goes around her Christmas morning! We girls all wake up at around 4:30 or 5:00, too excited to go back to sleep, and since we haven't any cows to milk, we lay around hushing eachother until 5:45 or 6:00. Then we wake Daniel up and cart him out of his room. He lays on our bedroom floor blinking like a mole in the bright light while we all impatiently wait to open our stockings. So after his eyes are adjusted, he brings out his Bible, and reads us the Christmas story from Luke 2. Then we open our stocking and revel over them. But by and by we decide that we need to wake Mama and Dad up so that we can go downstairs to open gifts from under the tree. Well, it's a good thing we wake them up that early, because we must make their coffee, set up camera tripods, sort the presents into individual piles, and then we do the last day of Advent :( Last year Mama made us eat breakfast before presents! (I couldn't manage it!)
When it is finally time we go around, usually youngest to oldest, and we each open a present, one at a time. Doing this, this time can stretch to a couple hours! It's alot of fun though to watch others open your gifts you made or bought for them! Well, I better go get dressed for work! Hope this was fun! Do ya'll think we should temporarily switch over to a Christmas background?