Scenes from the Season

Jesse, holding up his can of pop to my brother at the Christmas party: "Now, this right here really means it's Christmas"

Leah, watching It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World for the first time: "They would've gotten there first if they'd just drove normally!"

Jesse - clearly his father's son - after walking in the house after the final travel of the final Christmas party: "VACATION!"

Delaney, filling her plate with the cut-up veggies I'd set out when we got home today: "I'm not eating another piece of candy or anything with sugar for a week. Maybe 3 months. Maybe till my birthday."

If I Made a List: Christmas Music

[I am the one for whom the media makes end-of-year or Best-of-year lists, ok? Just in case you were wondering. I love them. They fill up my wish lists and library cards with new books to read and music to find and recipes to try and ideas to test. So this year I'm going to try and contribute instead of just consuming.]

Top 5 Christmas Albums


Notes:
     - I can't bring myself to rank them, so "no particular order".
     - I don't like all the songs on all the albums, but there is no way I could do "top 5 Christmas songs", so just consider this imperfect. Favorite Songs have an *.
     - I could go on with disclaimers all day long; you know that, right? : )

#5. Amy Grant: A Christmas Album
One of the first cassette tapes I owned myself. Best played while cooking or decorating. Top songs: A Christmas Hymn*, Hark! The Herald Angels, A Mighty Fortress, Praise the King.

#4. Barlow Girl: Home for Christmas
Close to my favorite. Crisp, clear harmonies that ring out through the speakers. Best way to start the Christmas music season, or to wake up the kids early in the morning. Top songs: Go Tell it on the Mountain, Carol of the Bells, O Come O Come Emmanuel, and Hallelujah (Light Has Come)*.

#3. Transiberian Orchestra: The Lost Christmas Eve
By October we are all itching to play it. We hold off until after Eric's birthday and this is one of the few Christmas albums he can take the whole season. We pick and choose among all their Christmas albums, but this is the one we discovered first. Top songs: Wizards in Winter, Anno Domine, Wish Liszt, Christmas Canon Rock*.

#2. Harry Connick, Jr.: When my Heart Finds Christmas
Ahhhh, Harry. Smooth. Best played while working on computer or doing schoolwork or having a party or driving around looking at Christmas lights. Top songs: I Pray on Christmas*, Parade of the Wooden Soldiers, The Little Drummer Boy.

#1. Anne Murray: What a Wonderful Christmas
Purely nostalgia. I can hear it playing on the record player while we decorated the tree growing up. Who can do The Coventry Carol like Anne? Or It Came Upon a Midnight Clear? Beautiful voice. Other top songs: Silver Bells, O Come All ye Faithful.

Honorable Mentions:
Any of Michael W. Smith's Christmas albums
The Chieftains: Bells of Dublin (LOVE. Could've been on top list. I Saw Three Ships, The Rebel Jesus)
Randy Travis: An Old Time Christmas (*God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen)
Vince Gill: Let There Be Peace on Earth*
Martina McBride: White Christmas (Best version of O Holy Night*)
Sara Groves: O Holy  Night (Cradle in Bethlehem*, Toy Packaging)
Toby Mac: Christmas in Diverse City (new, but quickly becoming a favorite; love Mary's Boy Child)
Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb

I leave you with our favorite original Christmas song performance of this year. This young Christian was inspired by this song and bringing what we have been given and laying it all out for Jesus. He played all the instruments in this arrangement and produced the video with help from his sister. He has totally inspired us here.

Merry Christmas!!

(Thanks to grandpa and grandma, we are so festive-looking!)

"In the first quiet moments of this new day my mind is drawn to Hebrews 2. Oh, how His voice speaks into my silence! The incarnation. Jesus becoming like us and sharing our human nature (Heb. 2:14). What a wonderful truth this is! Veiled in flesh the Godhead see. Hail the incarnate Deity! God has lavished His love upon us, with all of our sin and rebellion and pride. That is how God acted toward us, and now we are called upon to demonstrate the fact that we are His children by having the same attitude toward others, including our enemies.

The identification of all of life with regard for the welfare of others -- this is the message of Christmas." -- Dave Black, Dec. 2010

Some Holiday Fun 2009

Christmas Survey

I'm resorting to memes for content. : )

Christmas Survey

1.) Have you started your Christmas shopping?

Yes. We're about mid-stream in a very small stream around here.

2.) Tell me about one of your special traditions.
Stockings filled with small, useful-or-not things that bring great joy and delight. Nothing big allowed! Chapsticks and socks and once-a-year candies and matchbox cars and toothbrushes. They love all that more than anything, just like I did.

3.) When do you put up your Tree?
Ummm, usually, the first weekend or so of December, but this year and last (Florida) we have had no tree. We've got a hand-made tree cut out on the wall that serves as our Thanksgiving tree and our Jesse tree. Eric has plans to make a wooden one that the Jesse tree ornaments can hang on.

4.) Are you a Black Friday shopper?
Cyber Monday

5.) Do you Travel at Christmas or Stay home?
Travel. We're trying to be home on Christmas morning/day now, but will see how that goes. This is what we get for moving away from family. : )

6.) What is your funniest Christmas memory?
We had several years in a row where our perfectly healthy children would get to their grandma's house for Christmas and one or two or five would proceed to throw up throughout the visit. (One year we got her a steam cleaner as a gift.) I came to expect it, but was also thoroughly embarrassed. One year the family was gathered in the large room opening gifts and I saw one of the twins come to the door with this look on his face, searching for me or Eric. Everyone was facing away from him, so I hurried quietly to him and whisked him to the bedroom, where he showed me that he had woken from a nap and thrown up all over the floor. Nice. I had it and him cleaned up before the gifts were done! I really don't know why it strikes me as funny when I remember it, but it does. I think it's one of those "laugh about it or else" memories.

7.) What is your favorite Christmas Movie of All time?
White Christmas. I'm a sap.
Also pretty fond of Charlie Brown Christmas.

8.) Do you do your own Christmas Baking? What’s your favorite treat?
Not a big baker. We make something for neighbors each year (not always food), and sometimes that turns into holiday baking. My favorite treat is my sister-in-law's chex mix/m&m stuff covered with white chocolate.

9.) Fake or Real Tree?
Real.

10.) What day (as a Mom) does the actual panic set in to get it all done?
When one of the kids starts counting and says, "Hey, there's only 10 days until Christmas!"

11.) Are you still wrapping presents on Christmas Eve?
Is there any other time?

12.) What is your favorite family fun time at Christmas?
Playing board games with family.

13.) What Christmas craft do you like the best?
Ha!

14.) Christmas music? Yes or No. And if yes, What is your favorite song?

YES

Love all the Christmas carols. Joy to the World, O Holy Night, God Rest Ye merry are favs, but love so many. Non-traditional favorite is Barlow Girl's "Light Has Come"

15.) When do you plan to finish all your shopping?
It would be nice to be done by the 20th, but my planning has been so off this year, I've lowered all expectations.


Any blogger is welcome to participate in this meme, even if you haven’t been tagged yet. Just simply copy and paste the questions into your blog, and then answer them. Then tag 5 or more of your favorite blogs, and leave them a comment telling them they’ve been tagged.

When you post your blog, please spread some Christmas cheer, and leave a link back to Heather's Top Ten Christmas Blog, and the blog that you were tagged by (I wasn't tagged, but I found this at The Common Room)

Hmmm...what day is it?

I'm definitely in that zone where we've been gone so long and I don't know quite where I am or what day it is. Monday? Really? It doesn't feel remotely like a Monday. I feel a strange pull to stand at my own kitchen sink and do dishes. Then I would feel centered. Ha!

It did start to feel kind of Monday-ish, however, last night when after the Norton Christmas celebration was over, Delaney started to feel bad and threw up a few times through the night. Then it hit Jesse today so I spent most of the day reading my book while keeping an eye on him. It was the "over-quick" variety, so it hasn't actually been too horrible (except, I'm sure, for our hosts who have to put up with our children who seem to throw up every single Christmas while they're here). Just a reminder that we are back in reality. It really did seem like all illnesses and colds and troubles were suspended while we were in Florida. Do families who live in Florida get stomach viruses in December?

Anyway, we and our germs will be heading home tomorrow. Only one more packing and unpacking to go!

News flash: Florida has better weather than Ohio in December

That would seem like a no-brainer, (right?) especially since it seems that half of the population of Ohio has come/is here/is coming to Florida in the winter. That would be a clue. But still, after a week here (and we know that we really hit the jackpot on Tampa winter weather this week), I'm a little surprised still each morning as I head out on the balcony in my short sleeves and soak in some Vitamin D. What a very, very nice thing to get a break from the constant cold.

When we debate each day whether to find a new place to explore, or try another area of beach, or find a new adventure, for our kids, the vote always comes back to "let's just swim in the pool!" It has been the greatest blessing to have this big heated pool. They are just thriving in it. Levi and Sara are swimming like fish now and Delaney and Jesse just jump in with their inner tubes over and over. Leah has even ventured off Her Step for some piggy-back rides. Pool tag with adults is the favorite game, as is diving for pool toys. Sara has just simply amazed us, going from an inner tube the first day to now swimming under water without one breath the entire length of the pool -- over and over and over. We made her get out to eat yesterday because we were worried she would get too weak from all those calories she was burning.

Today we ventured down to St. Petersburg Pier, which was beautiful. We watched the boats, toured the small aquarium, hit the gift shops and restaurant, and rode the trolley. Jason's family had a good time riding the family bicycle around the area, but we opted to head back and -- what else -- swim one last time before starting The Packing.

We're heading back north tomorrow, for a Christmas visit with Eric's family. We can't wait to see everyone and share our stories and shells, but we are definitely sad to leave!

Here's a few more pics, from the pier today:

Shells, sand and seagulls, oh my!

You guessed it -- we've been at the beach. We (the seven in our family) went yesterday to scope out Honeymoon Island -- a small island that has been saved as a state park and has lots of great wildlife; it's just west of Tampa. It was cooler yesterday (high of 63:), so we just spent time checking out the great sea shells around the north side of the island. Delaney was in shell heaven and we collected way too many.

Today we went back (all 16 of us -- yes, Karyn and John are here!) and had a memorable day in the fun and sun. There was hiking, shelling, much dolphin-sighting, warm sun but much too much wind to be perfectly content, wading in the cool ocean, meeting visitors from mostly states other than Florida, sand-castle building, burying each other in the sand, and, last but never least, the seagulls. When it was about time for our packed picnic lunch, I got out the pretzels and the kids starting eating. We noticed some seagulls creeping near and the kids wanted to feed them. I said -- casually -- "no, don't do that because then more will keep coming and want to be fed". Levi did not heed that warning and tossed one of them a pretzel. To say the least, BAD IDEA. A true flock descended and wanted more. As we started getting out sandwiches and the rest of the food, they basically turned into crazy-commando-seagulls. They flew about 4 feet overhead the whole time and kept swooping down. Finally, one of them literally came in and grabbed Izaak's (nephew) peanut butter and jam sandwich FROM HIS HANDS. It was insane! Angie gave him her sandwich and he started eating it, and another seagull took that one. I'm not kidding. We ended up having to hide the food and if you wanted to eat, you had to do it under a towel or blanket. Once we quit eating and got them to finally mostly go away, if anyone even opened the bag that had the covered food in it, they would start to gather again. I must say I will be surprised if the children do not have a few nightmares about swooping seagulls.

Other than that, we are entertaining ourselves by checking the weather in Ohio compared to here (it seems as though someone is doing this by the hour around here). : ) Hope everyone is staying warm, and merry Christmas Eve Eve.

Some pics:

Deja Vu?

Does anyone remember last year close to this time, when, oh, I started this blog to document a big road trip?

Little did I know that Big Road Trip #2 would come so soon. My dear father, from whom I have inherited bones which get colder than others' bones starting in October, has gotten my dear mother to go to Florida during her Christmas break the only way possible: by taking all of her children and grandchildren too.

I'll do my best to record our trip here, again, since reminiscing over last year's posts has given me great joy, and because my memory does not seem to be improving. This is our very first go-to-one-place-and-stay-there-for-the-whole-week vacation, so any readers may tire of my "The kids swam while I read a book" posts. : )

Sing, sing, sing

For your (ok, the grandparent's) viewing pleasure, the homeschool choir concert.

First, the preschoolers (Leah in the middle):


Then, Jesse, Sara, Delaney and Levi's group with two fun songs:

A Norton Christmas Eve

We're still mixing it up from year to year with our Christmas Eve traditions, except for three sure things: the reading of Luke's account of the birth of Jesus; eggnog with nutmeg; and singing. Tonight we added in viewing The Nativity Story, singing Silent Night with some carefully held candles, hanging our next-to-last Jesse tree ornament, and, strangely, wrestling with Dad (can't you just see their children years from now? "Dad, why do we always wrestle on Christmas Eve?" "I don't know, son, that's just always what our family has done.").

Here are some quote highlights:
"In those days, Cas-car Ah-goose-tus issued a decree...." -- Levi, who sometimes reads the Bible passages a bit too quickly.

Eric (with his annual "trick" question): "So, who was Jesus' father?"
Levi/Delaney/Jesse/Sara: "Joseph!"
Eric: "No. "
Delaney: "Daniel?"

Merry Christmas everyone! May God's grace and mercy be renewed to you tomorrow, and every, morning.