Christmas at Home

The front entrance.

Christmas 2010 was spent at home.  A relaxing time for all of us!  By tradition we attend church service, eat a big meal on Christmas Eve.  Then we eat dessert which is usually pie (this time it was apple pie) and ice cream.  Tim and I drink our coffee and THEN we open the presents.  This year the wait was longer because Tim along with Shannon and Brahms played for the Christmas Eve services.  

 On Christmas morning the kids get up early and we open the stockings before we eat breakfast.   This year we added a new exercise which is to assign each person in the family to find and read bible verses that has something to do with Christmas.   We also had each member of the family complete the phrase "Christmas is a story of ...." And explain.   This was intended to help each one to reflect on the meaning of Christmas and not be focused on material things.  These were the answers:

Christmas is a story of change.  Lives of so many people changed when Jesus Christ was born.  The world changed. ~ Shannon

Christmas is a story of Jesus saving us.  Jesus came so that men would be saved from the punishment of their sins.  ~ Brahms

Christmas is a story of love.  God loves us so much that he sent His son Jesus (knowing that He would die) to show us the way.  Whoever would follow Jesus will live eternally with Him in heaven. ~ Miriam

Christmas is a story of surprises.  The events around the birth of Jesus were all unexpected and unconventional from man's point of view.  Virgin birth; God's Son born in a manger; the Jews missing to recognize their King; Herod to be informed by kings from far away land about an event in his own kingdom; etc.  That is how God works up to this time - in unexpected ways.  Prepare, therefore, to be amazed! ~ Tim

Christmas is a story of death.   Not the stopping-to-breath kind of death but dying to an existing course of life in order to please God.  When Jesus came he died from His equality with God - to please the Father; Mary willingly gave up her plans in order to do what God called her to; and Joseph died from his pride to wed a pregnant woman.  In like manner, God calls us to die from our own selfishness so that we can follow Him. ~ Helen

Christmas lights adorn the house during the cold winter nights.

Posing for a Christmas picture after coming back from the Christmas Eve Service.

The living room prior to the invasion of torn gift wrappers.

While waiting for siblings, someone is trying to get some hints...

Miriam inspects the ornaments.

Playing Scattergories with the other other Lewises and the Petersons (Dec. 26th).

Old stockings hang on the railings.

It was a good Christmas.  We went Roseville to go watch "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" in 2D but tickets were sold out.  Most of the people in our family prefer 2D over the dizzying 3D version.   We were favored to have been joined by Tim's relatives - "The Other Other Lewises".   It was very nice to spend the 26th of December (the first day of Christmas?) with Bruce and Perla Lewis and their son Carlos, Katherine Lewis, Mary Beth Peterson, and Charlone and Duane Peterson.   We played "Scattergories".  This game really shows the differences in the experiences of the different players which makes it really fun.

Tim gave me a Rebel EOS T2i for Christmas - I've always wanted to have an SRL camera!  Right now I am learning about it.   Although I've managed to take few pictures with it already, downloading is something I still have to learn. 

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." - John 1:14