My FAVORITE of all holidays (and holy days), rich with symbolism and meaning. It is not only deeply spiritual, but full of meaning I get to publicly share during the season, my best witnessing days each year!
I mean – Amy Grant JUST tweeted – like, a couple of hours ago – that she was in Dallas doing a sound check for a big Salvation Army fundraising luncheon.
I did post about the incredible SA yesterday and I promise, I did not know Amy worked with them. Great minds think alike, they say. I thought Stephanie Morgan (with whom I shall travel to Nashville next December to SEE Amy Grant & Vince Gill for their famous Christmas show at The Ryamn, YES-IN PERSON, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise) would cheer me on for supporting the SA, just like Amy Grant does. *smile
Didn’t you love the video I shared with you yesterday? Didn’t it just make wonderful sense about how your donations actually help people getting their lives straight? And you don’t throw away your stuff just like we don’t throw away people and it is a win-win all around? Isn’t that wonderful? If you missed it, watch this really inspiring 30-seconds called “Not Wasted”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a9g5FdudYY
But you may as well also see this preach-it-now commercial for the Salvation Army called, “Amazing Grace.” THIS is what your donations do! Chill-bumps, seriously.
Have you started gathering nice things you can live without to donate? Have you???
Please watch this 30-second video for me, will you?
Not wasted.
Not trashed.
Not thrown away.
Not junk.
Saved.
Saved.
Repaired.
And restored.
I am renewed.
When you donate used goods to the Salvation Army, you are giving the greatest gift – a second chance to those who need it most. Donating couldn’t be easier or more urgent. Visit www.SATruck.org for a donation center near you or call 1-800-SA-Truck for free pick-up.
When I saw this on TV a few weeks back, I was so moved at the simple message and by the good work the Salvation Army has long been doing, I went on the lookout for it so I could share it with all of you.
Thrifting is in vogue these days and everyone likes a good deal (which you can find at the Salvation Army stores), but what struck me about this ad was the reminder that when we shop at a Salvation Army, when we donate the things we no longer have need of – we are actually in real life, in real time affecting real lives, helping people who have maybe lost their way, who have been pushed aside.
But you could make a difference. Easy.
How simple would it be, this week, to go around your house (every room and even the garage) and gather up some nice things to donate? It appeals to my sense of not being wasteful, of giving value to something that you no longer use, but which might bless another family. It stops wastefulness and trashing material items – at the same time it is repairing and restoring hearts and lives and families and individuals.
What if just not throwing away things you no longer need somehow helped renew a life, a person?
Thanksgiving and Christmas, times of goodwill toward men (like the Father toward us) are a great time to not just think about doing something, but actually doing it. Save-repair-restore-renew…we can do this. We have more than enough!
NOTE: When I first saw the ad, I couldn’t find it online anywhere, so I went all the way to Deborah Knutson/USW/SArmy, Public and Corporations Director for the Salvation Army USA Western Territory in Long Beach, CA. She sent me to Kathy Lovin USW/SArmy@USW who helps promote the Adult Rehabilitation on Social Media sites. At first, she hadn’t seen the ad, but when it became available on YouTube two months later, she remembered me and sent the link. Very nice! Thank-you, Kathy Lovin! God bless! http://www.salvationarmy.usawest.org
Time is my favorite gift of all. Time is limited. Time is fleeting. Time flies. It runs out and it is money. Time is of the essence and time is on my side. And time is my love language (you can quote me on that).
My 6 fav trees this year, each uniquely crafted by one of my grandbebes
I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE getting to spend time with my family, with other people I adore at Christmas just because it is Christmas. You could make the argument that we cram too much togetherness into the Christmas season, but it would be wasted on me because without a reason drawing us, we are prone to let too much time and activity slip between our fingers – and not with people who matter to us more than life. Then it is just gone, along with chances to love…
Every year, the gift that means the most to me is the time my busy kids and husband give me on December 25 (and the few days before and after). I realize its great value and matchless worth. I cherish it like gold.
Mailed for one-cent in the early 1900s.
There is a time at Christmas for everything,
and a season for every Christmas activity under the heavens (though maybe not everything all at once or every year – over the course of life, everything needed to be accomplished and enjoyed and celebrated during Christmas will be…):
a time to be born (a looking forward to adoption this Christmas!) and a time to make snowman hand-print ornaments for the family-tree,
a time to glue-together glittery-paper trees and a time to clean out the toy box for all the new blessings,
a time to play movie games and a time to break out the brand new Play-Dough,
a time to tear down the tents Poppa built and a time to re-build them in your own houses,
At Christmas there is a time to weep when your cousin grabs your new doll and a time to laugh while bright-colored papers fly through the air and some one who gets you gave you something you’d never have asked for but secretly desired,
There’s a time to bemoan too many cookies and snacks and a time to dance in the Christmas program,
a time to scatter 64 brand new Crayola crayons and 276 tiny army guys all over the place and a time to gather receipts for returns,
a time to embrace and a time to appreciate,
a time to search for lost pieces of the new puzzle and a time to give up,
a time to keep these people close in your heart and a time to throw away grudges and offense,
a time to split the last chocolate chip cookie in half and a time to mend toy parts,
a time to be silent, just delighting in the people who surround you and a time to speak life-giving words,
There is a time to love until your heart is wrung out of all love (at which time God Himself will pour His love into us, flow through us) and a time to hate evil and destruction and defy it to enter our homes, our families,
Christmas is a time for reminding the enemy of our souls that Jesus came and saved us and a time for the Prince of Peace to be welcomed into our lives to rule and reign as He should…
What on earth do we gain from all the work of Christmas? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race, but the times of celebration He wants us to have, too. He has made everything beautiful in its time…there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat pumpkin pie and spiral-cut honey-hams and drink eggnog and punch, and find satisfaction in all their outdoor illumination and tree-decorating and gift-giving and singing—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does (even in the Christmas celebrations we present to Him in worship) will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it.
Thank-you for the time at Christmas, Father.
Obvious rip-off of Ecclesiastes 3.
Ornaments made through the years for the family tree
Lisa Bierer hand-painted a Christmas card for me about a year after we met them. She painted a colorful tree with boxes below and each was labeled with one of the names of Dave and I and the kids. And she wrote a sentiment that said something like “You were the gifts under our tree this year.” I have never forgotten how truly appreciated and cherished I felt by that lovely visual and those kind words. And in life, I have found, that some people just appear from nowhere and you recognize that are divine gifts – you could never have chosen them if you’d had the choice, you could never have recognized them on the street.
First – the children God gave me. That He chose me to mother these people, well…speechless. They are admirable and gifted and beyond me in every possible way. I could not have comprehended how precious they were before they came and would have been paralyzed with fear if I had. The greatest gifts I ever got…
Then the grandchildren my children are having. Beyond words, delight to the moon and back! I love them a gazillion-million-trillion and have only barely tapped the resources of that love, it just keeps erupting.
And friends (including my best friend, Dave). I can count the forever friends on my fingers. And that is more than I deserve.
With the addition of the new-kid, Ryan (Tredessa’s husband!!), we are now 17. It is hard to tell, but Stephanie is holding my new grand-dog, a 7 week-old cute-as-a-button terrier mix.
The gifts:: It really is not about a new toaster or diamond earrings or even the highly-thoughtful hand-knitted scarf, but about the person who hands it to me, or when I get to wrap something up for some one I love with so much of my heart I have nearly none left (Shakespeare rip-off), but they get it. They see behind the meager attempt-in-a-box the love that placed it there, even though a “thing,” an inanimate object, is powerless to say what I really want to say.
The gifts are sweet. They are thoughtful. They are appreciated, and cherished. They are really the people who gave them. They are the people I love.
This pic by Dani Lay Photography (taken at The Heaven Fest Christmas Party)
I grew up in humble surroundings. In fact, I just had some one recently refer to the neighborhood I grew up in as the “ghetto.” But to me it was Leave it to Beaver-middle America. My dad was bi-vocational, a milkman in the wee hours and a church-planting-pastor by night, which in those days meant that he was, besides everything else, also financing it. And I watched my mom toil over her budget and struggle to make ends meet. Into the night she’d sit figuring out how to feed us and clothe us and support missionaries, too. But when Christmas came, she made it amazing.
Every year she’d tell me, “We can’t do much this year, but I will make sure you have at least 5 gifts under the tree” (I think her budget was $25 per child and there were 5 of us). There were always more. Plus the little touches like nuts in the shell for cracking throughout December.
She’d make “popcorn-ball garlands,” red and green rounds wrapped in cello and tied with red and green curling ribbon for relatives and neighbors. Her baked goods were prized gifts.
She made a big deal of December 15 – the day we always got the tree (my dad would not allow it earlier) and we’d carefully unpack a mish-mash of ornaments her relatives had given to her when she got married. I so regret getting her to switch to more organized “designer” trees 20 years ago or so, and teaching her to “theme.” I think she has reverted back somewhat, but I don’t know if any of my childhood ornaments, like the little collectors elves you see now, are still around. She gave me the angel-hair/spun glasss angel tree topper from 1964, but much of the rest is now gone. Because 20 years ago I was too busy trying to be unique to recognize the rich beauty of the traditions and little pieces of Christmas that had always been there.
On Christmas eve (right about now as I write), as soon as the sun began to set, we were home – warm and cozy and ate snacks and had homemade hot cocoa (not pre-mixed, please, my mom made it in a heavy pan with whole milk and fresh cocoa). There’d be popcorn and Bugles. Bugles. They were a Christmas Eve snack. And there were these things called Pizza Spins, which they no longer make. Usually some chips and dip, a rare treat in those days. And we would snack while watching A Charlie Brown Christmas or The Davy & Goliath Christmas episode.
We’d go to bed a little earlier than usual on Christmas Eve, dad having read the Christmas story to us from the Bible and the fam praying on our knees together before then, most years. I would agonize trying to go to sleep. I was always filled with such anticipation. Then there was always an unwrapped gift that we came out to in the morning. And other things my mom managed to fit into her budget.
I loved it.
I am still trying to figure out how she did it….
“All that I come from and all that I live for and all that I’m going to be – my precious famaily is more than an heirloom to me.”
Grandbebe’s annual Christmas PJ Party with Nonna and Poppa~
1.7 seconds after they got through the front door, this is what I saw.
The PJ party included, but was not limited to cookies for baking and Toys R Us for shopping and Good Times for eating and food playing. There was hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream and popcorn and movies and 7up and cookies and cousins and the-best-way-to-spread-Christmas-cheer-is-singing-LOUD-for-all-to-hear and the Christmas story and making ornaments for Nonna’s tree and the annual reindeer-head print using little-but-growing hands and feet and paint (what the heck am I thinking!??) and watching Gilligan’s Island, of all things and sleepy little heads nodding off anywhere from between 9 pm and 2 in the morning (Guini and Hunter are almost always the hold-outs). And somehow they still wake up at the butt-crack of dawn no matter how late the festivities and little monkeys jumping on beds and o-my-goodness: I was born for this!
I snapped these while talking to my mom on the phone while the kids ate breakfast with Grandpa.
The employees at Toys R Us did not seem nearly as joyously enchanted with our little monkeys as we were. It was merry mischief.
Baking day was Sunday. Just the girls, for the working part. Then the boys for the chicken tacos (and beef, too). Extra salt, please.
Minty Cake Balls with Green Mint Icing (Gemma)
Peppermint Brownies with crushed candy topping (Guini)
Hot Chocolate Truffles (Guini)
Peanut Butter Cookies, gluten-free and totally flour-less! (Averi)
Chocolate Chip Cookies (Tara)
Peanut Butter Balls (Tredessa)
Puppy Chow (Jovan)
Dipped and Decorated Pretzels (the little girls)
Turtle Pretzels, with Rolos and Pecans and almonds (Stormie)
Candy-Kiss & M & M Pretzels (Jovan)
Ritz Thin-Mints (Tara)
Hidden Valley Ranch Oyster Crackers (Tara & Stormie)
Homemade Twix (Stephanie invented with mini-wafers, caramels and chocolate for dipping)
Christmas Crack (Stormie). The name implies your absolute inability to quit eating it. It involves sugar and butter becoming caramel, being poured over saltines and topped with rich chocolate chips, cooled into crispy-sweet-savory succulence. Yes it does. You’re hooked already, aren’t you?
Plus? There are cupcakes and sugar cookies and chocolates and Cutie oranges. There is hot chocolate and spiced tea and banana bread and pumpkin bread. o-my-goodness. Suagr-shock!
After baking and dinner, we watched Nativity! on the “big screen” in the living room.
We used the “vintage” movie screen and a way-modern projector. Rent it. Stream it free from Netflix. Whatever. You will like it. It is cute and sweet and British and funny.
Trace Bundy was over-the-top incredible at the Heaven Fest Christmas Party.
He did a 2-guitar thing in D-minor and D-major called, “Joy and Sorrow,” or maybe it was “Sorrow and Joy.” I can’t remember. But JOY wins. That I do recall. Because it does. It is actually a huge part of what Jesus is all about!
Luke 10.21 Jesus, full of joy…
Luke 2.9-11 …the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”
John 3.29 [Jesus speaking] That joy is mine and it is now complete.
John 15.11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
John 16.22 I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.
John 17.13 I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world,
so that they may have the full measure of my JOY within them.
His joy, in us. The hope that keeps me going…
PS // I “ran into” Heather at WalMart and Marilyn at The Dollar Tree yesterday! Happy surprise!
Slightly amazed that I know people as wondrous as these. Got to see Candi and Amy Jo and Patrice at the Christmas Party. Missing my Pearly-Q. Might have to plan a reason to bump into her! ;)
Or at least just give us some space. Stephanie and Tristan and the kids (Gavin, Guini and Gemma May) just released their Christmas Greeting 2011. It is THE coolest!
