After my long silence... I thought I should get Christmas up before Easter...
This year, we tried to do Christmas a little differently. In the past, the focus has been on gifts and food and we wanted it to be more on the excitement of our Savior's birth. My family (they sweetly came to Dallas since we had to be in town for Christmas Eve) agreed to change things up a bit. We started the morning with a big family breakfast. Instead of rushing to gifts, we spent time worshiping with Christmas music together (with no one in the family that can carry a tune, there were a few giggles here and there). Then we each took a passage about Jesus's birth from the Bible and read it aloud. We kinda had our own mini church service. I thought it was pretty special. Then at 11ish, we opend gifts from each other... more slowly than normal. In the afternoon, we had friends over that dont have family in town to eat Christmas dinner with us. Not the usual ham or turkey this year (that isnt anyones fav). We had steak and potatoes (I think this should be a new tradition). After dinner, we planned an intense game of Guesstures. I remember a few people sliding into the game as they yanked the card out. :) After games, we watched "The Nativity Story", also a new family tradition. This movie does a great job of capturing Mary's experience leading up to the birth of her baby- it comes highly recommended!
Looking back, Christmas this year was so special. Special to have a sweet baby to watch marvel at all this gifts and wonderful to share with family and friends! Since Ryan and I have the only baby in our church, our family got to play Mary, Joseph and Jesus on Christmas Eve in the pageant they put on, another very special memory! I will post this picture soon.
