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

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