Merry Christmas

From our family to yours, we wish you a very, merry Christmas!

O Come Let Us Adore Him

This Christmas has been busier than normal for our family with a constant stream of parties, school and church activities, visits to the theme parks along with all the normal Christmas busyness of shopping, wrapping, baking and decorating. Oh, and packing for our 19 hour drive to Illinois. In the midst of the chaos, we have been able to find some quiet moments to reflect on Advent and the birth of our Savior. We have a great childrens Advent book about the different names of Jesus and what they mean. We have had some sweet moments reading from this book with the kids in front of the Christmas tree. After each reading there is a special ornament that is hung on the tree. Emily is at such a great age now to start to understand who Jesus is and what he did for us. Even Noah is starting to learn about Jesus. If you ask him where Jesus is, he runs to our nativity scene and points to the baby in the manger and shouts, "Jesus! Jesus!"

Christmas at EPCOT

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is going to see the Candlelight Processional at EPCOT. They have a mass choir, orchestra and celebrity narrator sing Christmas songs and tell the story of Jesus' birth. The music is amazing and never fails to give me chills. The celebrity narrator we saw this year was Virginia Madsen. In past years, we have seen John O'Hurley, Kirk Cameron, Rita Moreno and Steven Curtis Chapman. My favorite part of the performance is the end when they sing "Do You Hear What I Hear?" followed by "Silent Night" (with the first verse sung by the choir in German and then the conductor turns around and leads the audience in singing the second verse, in English of course). After that, the audience rises to their feet while the choir sings the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's "Messiah". Awesome!

Most of the countries have either a Santa Claus native to their country or a storyteller that shares Christmas traditions from their country. This was the Santa and Mrs. Claus at the American Pavilion. The line was way too long for us to stand in to visit with them, but I got a picture anyway.

This was the German storyteller and a live Nutcracker. The kids enjoyed hearing her tell the story about the nutcracker that comes to life. (And he did, right before our eyes!) They were amazed.

Emily enjoying the Christmas lights in Germany.

The Mom Song

This is a fun video from our church from a service back in August. It has been viewed over 3 million times on Youtube and Vimeo. It has been ranked #37 of this month's most popular videos on Youtube and 1.25 million people have visited our church's website because of it. The service that weekend was about motherhood and the song is all of the things that a mom says in one day.

The Lost Ending of "It's a Wonderful Life"

Every time I watch "It's a Wonderful Life" I'm reminded of a hilarious skit "Saturday Night Live" did many years ago about the lost ending to the movie when Mr. Potter gets his comeuppance. Here it is:

Favorite Christmas Movies

My all-time favorite Christmas movie is the classic "It's a Wonderful Life". It's such a great story and of course, the end always makes me cry. I love one of the theme's of the film that everyone's life has a purpose and that even what we think are insignificant details in our life affect the lives of the people around us.






Elf is another of my favorites. Will Ferrell cracks me up in this. I think the first time I saw it, I was crying because I was laughing so hard. There are so many hilarious scenes. And of course, it takes place in my favorite city, so that makes me love it even more.









I don't know if "Little Women" is considered a Christmas movie, but it has several Christmas scenes in it, so I will designate it as such. I'm embarrassed to say that I have never read the book. I'm going to make sure that I read it soon. The story is so good and the acting is fantastic. The musical score and the scenery are beautiful. I usually love any film that takes place in the 1800's.









What are your favorite Christmas movies?

A Visit with Santa Claus

Christmas Portraits

Thanksgiving

Here are a few pictures from Thanksgiving. My brother and his family came down from Charlotte. We had such a good time with them. It was a fun weekend.

Our Musical Prodigy

The other day we were over at my parent's house and I was playing some Christmas songs on the piano. When I was done, Noah climbed up on the bench and played the first seven or eight notes of "Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee" with the tune from Beethoven's 9th Symphony. He did this not once but twice in a row! We laughed and I said that we should start calling him Baby Bach.

Christmas Cookies

Matt and Emily baked cookies the other day.

Noah enjoyed them as did everyone else.

A Close Call with a Critter

Last night before we went to bed, Matt went out the front door to make sure the cars were locked up. When he opened the door, there was a raccoon standing there. The raccoon ran off and Matt continued outside to check the cars, leaving the front door open. While he was standing by his truck, he felt something brush by his legs and turned and saw another raccoon running down the driveway. He started to come back into the house and saw yet another raccoon standing at the door almost ready to come in the house! Thankfully, Matt got there in time to scare him away before he came inside. Meanwhile, I was sitting on the couch in the family room happily watching "Dancing With the Stars" completely unaware of what was going on outside. I don't know what I would have done if I had seen a raccoon come tearing through the house. It probably would have been similar to the scene in "Christmas Vacation" when they found the squirrel in the Christmas tree.

Operation Christmas Child

This past weekend, Matt took Emily and Griffon to church to put together some shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. This is a wonderful organization that sends shoe boxes filled with toys and other small items to children in third world countries for Christmas. The kids always love to put together a box to send to a child of the same age they are.

They also made Christmas cards to send to the troops.

In the meantime, Noah and I were at the Longwood craft festival where I bought this cute fall wreath and little Christmas tree.