Christmas 2023

 

What a crazy Christmas it has been! There was a lot going on. 

But it has been fun and fulfilling too.

Our little bit of snow that stuck. It was gone by the next morning. 

What a warm winter it's been so far this year.

Mr. Carl Moore is a member of our church (his son baptized Phillip many years ago). He turned 100 this month, so his family had a delicious chicken dinner birthday party at our church. After the party was the town Christmas parade, and Carl was the grand marshal which means he led the parade in a little kart with some of his family. Happy Birthday, Mr. Carl!

Paul and his brother Lee at Carl's birthday party.

Photo from Facebook

We have a lot of lighted tractors in our parade, and it's really quite fabulous.

The old Dairy Queen sign being put to good use.

Jonathan was in his own parade over in Florida. 

He helped hold the church's Christian school sign.

Phillip got me an Advent puzzle this year. I love it! We received it a few days late, so Harrison helped me get caught up so that we'd be on schedule for the 24 days before Christmas.

Harrison and I went to pick Jon up from the airport. He is here for three weeks.

The kids playing games together.

Harrison won another family game of Risk.

My dad made wooden chess pieces for Jonathan out of oak and pecan. Phoebe isn't super familiar with chess, so she kept turning the storyline into a romance to hold her interest.

Jon gave Harrison money to get his own Minecraft account, so now these three can play Minecraft together.

Phoebe took all the paint off an old chair she was given and is going to stain or repaint it. That's been her Christmas break project.

Harrison bought himself a BB gun, and that's been his Christmas break project. 

Jonathan has been working since he got back from Florida, and that's been his Christmas break project. (Besides being sick. He got sick as soon as he got here and had it pretty bad for about a week. He's getting better now.)

We all had a chance to do some Advent puzzle. The blue part was hard, but the rest was fun and fairly easy.

Phoebe always fluffs out the tree for us when it's time to decorate.

Little Christmas yarn birds that we saved from last year.

Phoebe suddenly said one morning, "We should go to the Nutcracker." 

So she and I went to the Nutcracker ballet in St. Louis and had a wonderful time of it.

Phoebe and some of her friends helped out with the church kids' Christmas play. She was onstage to help kids behave and participate.

The completed Advent puzzle on Christmas Eve.

All three kids participated in the Christmas Eve service. 

Harrison read Scripture.

Jonathan did the Communion meditation.

Phoebe was one of the candle lighters. 

Christmas morning ~ opening gifts!

Phoebe's trying out her new wooden hairbrush set.

Phoebe made me a woven plaid bookmark. It's red on one side and blue on the other. 

Such lovely work.

Lanaya Elizabeth has been working with stamps. She carves the pattern on rubber blocks and then inks and stamps. She gave me this wonderful wall print and a bookmark. 

"Hiraeth" is a Welsh word that connotes "a blend of homesickness, nostalgia and longing, a pull on the heart that conveys a distinct feeling of missing something irretrievably lost." Maybe a little bit like CS Lewis' "Northernness." 

We were not at all hungry for Christmas dessert, but I thought this dessert was so pretty for the Christmas dinner table.

Family here for Christmas dinner.

We probably need a bigger table.

The younguns' have to sit elsewhere. But they seemed to enjoy each other's company.

A few days after Christmas Day we headed to Kansas City to meet up with Amos and Lanaya E.

We've been wanting to take Phoebe to the Nelson-Atkins art museum, so we stopped there first before the Air BnB was ready for checkin. We did not have enough time however, so we ended up dropping Jon and Phoebe off again the next day for several hours, so they could see the whole thing. 

Phoebe found a John Singer Sargent (one of her favorite artists), we all saw the Caravaggio (not very many are owned by Americans, so this was a treat: John [the Baptist] in the Wilderness), and Jonathan enjoyed the landscapes. He had a lot to say about a large brass double door with Bible scenes cast onto it. Harrison and I rushed through most of it the first day because Harrison was about to fall asleep and didn't want to linger too long over any one thing. He enjoyed the very old pistols that we found though.

The kids had all decided to wear their plaids! Love them.

Hey you, newlyweds! They've been married over a year now. 

Seems like not that long ago though. 

It was just a wonderful time to spend a few days with these two ~ hang out, talk, eat together, share gifts. We will miss them.

Opening gifts again! 

I have to say that I love the Air BnB that we stayed at. It was so clean and comfortable with everything we needed in the kitchen for meals. 

Lanaya E gave the kids each a knitted hat from her collection.

Friends from college came over for lunch the next day. 

Tom preached our first wedding ceremony with Phillip's parents and grandma in Kansas City (before we flew to Seattle for the second ceremony with my family; we flew across the country trying to keep it simpler and get as many family members in as we could. We also had receptions later to include more family and friends.) 

Tom's sister Emily roomed across the hall and was a close friend in college, his brother was in Greek class with me, the Worstell family were wonderful hosts to Cory and I while we were in college far from home. Phillip would eat lunch with Tom and Nikki once a week once they were married and living off campus. Lots of college memories with Worstells. 

Anyway, I had not seen them since they visited Florida and we met up with them in Daytona. That was a long time ago! Their youngest, Hope, came for lunch too, so we got to know her a little bit. It was great to visit with them.

And now we're back home.