Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!

We hope that you all had a very Merry Christmas!  We didn't go far this year.  In fact, we had a very nice and simple morning at home this year.  And in the afternoon we drove to Ft. Collins to be with Jay's mom.  While we were there it snowed quite a lot.  So, we were glad that we didn't travel far.  Jay decided to sleep in on Christmas morning.  Penny woke up WAY too early, like 5 am, because of the excitement of anticipating Christmas day.  So, she got up when she heard mom up at 7 am.  I (Mom) had to laugh, because the first thing she thought of in the morning was wanting to make guacamole.  She headed over the fruit/veggie bowl and said, "Where's the avacado?"  Well, the funny thing was that it was missing!  I said, "I wonder where it could be?!"  That girl was so smart.  She was onto me right away and went straight to the Christmas stockings.  Sure enough!  "Santa" had felt sorry for Mommy the night before when "he" noticed that Mommy's stocking would be empty.  So, he placed the bag of pecans from the neighbors and the lone avacado in Mommy's stocking!  She also took a sneak peek into her own stocking and saw the bag of Thai Lay's potato chips that I hadn't wrapped.  So, these two gifts were "opened" early before Daddy got up.

 

So, Penny and I made a big breakfast of eggs, rice, toast, guacamole and hashbrown patties.

 

Jenny decided to join us for breakfast, since Jay was sleeping in.

  After breakfast Penny was fading fast while Jay was just starting to stir.  So, I convinced her to go take a nap while Jay ate his breakfast and we took our showers, and I did a few more last minute preparations to get ready for our festivities.

  Finally, when everyone was ready and the nap was over, we got together in the living room to listen to the personalized story book of "The Night Before Christmas" from Hallmark that Jay made for Penny last Christmas.



Then we opened up gifts.

  It was a very fun time.  A big highlight was how thrilled Jenny was to get her toy skunk, whose tummy holds catnip.  She was trying to play with it before I could even remove it from its packaging!



I think one of Penny's favorite gifts were all of the different flavors of Thai lays that I ordered for her from Thailand.  In true adolescent fashion, she inhaled them within days.

 

 

In the afternoon on Christmas day,  we drove up to Ft. Collins to see Jay's mother.  She didn't want to cook, so we ate out at Country Buffet.  I feel awful that I never took any pictures of Mother!  But, that's what I often do.  I get too busy talking with people and forget to take pictures of them!  I did take one picture of Penny when she opened a fun gift from Grandma.

 

I also took pictures of Grandma's pretty decorating at her house for Christmas.

 

After spending some relaxing time at Grandma's home, we drove around Ft. Collins in the snow and looked at lights.  It was definitely a white Christmas!

 

Also, I forgot to mention, that before Christmas, we really enjoyed hearing Jay sing in the Cherry Creek Chorale Christmas concert.  My favorite part was when the singers surrounded us in the audience and gave us true surround sound with a beautiful song, "Sure on this Shining Night".

 

We hope that you, too, were surrounded by God's amazing true love on that shining night!  And not just on Christmas night, but on each and every night of the year, as you realize that He came down for you and me, because He wanted to save us all!

 

 

I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart!

Well, I know the title here is to a song that is not specifically a Christmas song.  But, it relates to the season, since it is such a season of joy.  At least it is for those of us who truly believe that God became man and came down to live in our world and to free us from sin and death.  We need that joyful news in our dark and sorrowing world, filled with so much bad news.  So, during this season, we try to focus on the real reason for the season.  I like to display my nativity set.  It wasn't very expensive.  In fact, I got most of the pieces at Walmart with a gift card.  You know, I'm always looking for a frugal deal.  But, the main reason I liked this nativity set was because the main characters come with bible verses about the real Christmas story.

 

We already celebrated a little Christmas time with our parents, during Thanksgiving time.  Mine came down from South Dakota, a day after they got 9 inches of snow, and picked up Jay's mom to bring her down to our place in the Denver metro area.  We first celebrated a very nice Thanksgiving time together, of course, with eating turkey and the fixings.  I even made homemade pies this year, which I don't normally do.

  

The next day my parents helped us decorate our house for Christmas.  It was a fun, relaxing day.

 

That night we opened some gifts.  It was fun, except that Penny was out of sorts.  We couldn't get a smile or a word out of her.  I think with both her school routine out of whack and  having guests over, changing the norm of life at home, she just was in a funk.  You know something's wrong when she just won't talk.  Let's just say we had a very "Silent Night, Holy Night"....

It was good to have Jay's mom with us.  We still miss his father.  But, we're thankful that his mom is doing well!  They would have celebrated their 60!h wedding anniversary yesterday!  Here are a few more pictures of our Christmas decorating.  We keep it pretty simple.  The stockings are hung by the window to the sun porch, rather than a fireplace, here.  I guess Santa has to break in the sunporch and then come through the window at our house!

 

I like to exchange my usual decorations on my shelves in the living room for some Christmas-related items.  Most of them were gifts from friends like from Germany.  There's an old picture of me in Japan and a pretty red votive crystal candle holder from our wedding.  The one thing I did purchase (with a sale and a coupon) was the angel.  I just love angels.  So, I broke down and bought one last year from Hobby Lobby.

 

I put this candle holder that I use for advent on our glass coffee table, which I got for half-off at Salvation army for a grand total of $3.50!  Also, I like to display the Christmas house music box.  You open the roof and look inside to watch things move, like the toy train set.  This was a gift from Jay's mom several years ago.  And I like to put out some Christmas books.

 

And here's our lovely kitty, who has been quite fascinated by the decorations!

 

She's actually done quite well at leaving the tree alone.  Our tree was a free find on Craig's List.  I actually put out a request asking if anyone had a Christmas tree that they were wanting to give away.  This was before we were bringing Penny home.  With all of the high costs of fees involved with adoption, I couldn't justify buying a new tree.  And I got one that's been just right for our family!  Not too big and not as small as our little pre-lit tree.  It fits perfectly in our little brick cottage.  And I love that we now have a bay window to display our little tree in.  If you look closely, you'll see some our ornaments we bought while we were in Thailand seven years ago, as well as pretty Japanese handmade ornaments which were a gift from one of my former students in Japan.  Here are a few more...

Now, when you look at our tree skirt, you'll notice it's a nice, handmade one that my mom sewed when us kids were little.  But, you'll notice it's rather disheveled!  That is because, although the cat is gentle with the tree, she is merciless when it comes to the tree skirt.  I think she is convinced that there must be something like a mouse hiding under it.  So, everyday she runs and jumps on it, attacking it and biting it.  Then she also attacks the stuffed animal snow people under the tree, too.  It's quite entertaining!

 

More pictures of evidence of tampering with the tree skirt and killing the snowmen....

 

Another joyful thing for us during this season, was that I, rather unexpectedly, got a new part-time job offer at our church.  Back in July I had decided to take on a second part-time custodial job at the church to add to my part-time hours at the front desk. The work wasn't terrible and it actually gave me a lot of exercise, helping me to get back into better physical shape.  However, the hours weren't the greatest, since it meant I've been needing to be at the church some weekday nights and lots of hours on the weekends, time I'd rather be spending with my family.  But, in August I was approached by my boss with an interesting proposal.  The church was thinking about adding a new part-time position as a missions "coordinator" (really more like a secretary) for the missions commission and would I be interested?  Well, naturally, I was very interested, since I had been a missionary and international ministries was my major at college.  But, since then it's been a long wait, between waiting for budget approvals, delayed meetings, other candidates and actually hearing that they had offered the job to another very qualified candidate.  The whole time I just prayed a lot about it, since I had never sought out the job, but it just kind of came to me.  I think God taught me a very important lesson throughout this whole waiting process.  I think He was teaching me to be patient and grateful for whatever He was providing me for the present moment.  In the end, the other person, who had initially said, "Yes," to the job offer, ended up turning it down.  She actually got another offer which was more enticing, because it was through a missions agency that she had already traveled to Cambodia with.  Now she'll not only get to work for their home office, but also sometimes travel to Thailand and Cambodia, as well!  So, when the pastor offered me the job, I said, "YES!"  And here's how I attempted to share the news with Jay....

 

The message was supposed to say, "I got the job"  But, as some people commented on my FB picture, it kind of looks like Japanese hiragana or like "I got the joy", which would apply as well.  And, it definitely shows that I should not be decorating cakes for a living!  Ha!  Well, here's hoping that your lives will be filled with the joy that comes from Immanuel (God with us)!!!