Category Archives: Christmas

Last Minute Trip…

…over the mountains and through the woods to see this little one and her parents!

We decided Friday evening to hit the road on Saturday morning to see our kids in northeastern Washington. We wanted to see them since they won’t be traveling to be with us at Christmas this year. I’ve been absent from visiting blogs because all my time has been spent chasing and enjoying our little Addy.

Addy recognized us and was willing to come to us with no hesitation. That is always a relief since there are weeks that pass between our visits.

Addy is cutting a new tooth and she continues to take a few steps at a time. Snow fell for most of the day on Sunday. We are heading home on Monday because of weather forecasts and the conditions on the roads and…I still need to decorate our tree.

It was a short and sweet trip getting caught up on all the new things Addy is enjoying from food to chatter to movement.

Fun times with gramps!

The Christmas tree was found and cut down on our kids’ property.

You have to catch a photo of her fast as she’s always on the go! She’s enjoying “pat a cake” and she can really move about in her walker!

It was fun to visit and have some sweet cuddles until next time.

The adults were able to complete a couple of projects, too, with extra hands keeping an eye on Addy.

We are hoping for clear sailing on the roads between Colville and Seattle today. Christmas is just one week away. Are you ready? We are more ready now that we’ve spent time with our kids in Colville.

Update: Thank you all for your good wishes and prayers. We made it home in great time and with very nice conditions most of the way home. We are very thankful we decided to come home on Monday as Tuesday welcomed snow and bad conditions on most of the roads we traveled yesterday. Today I will finally put the ornaments on the tree and since it is so rainy and blustery outside maybe I’ll even start wrapping some gifts.

Christmas Past and Present

These vintage cards are from my mother-in-law’s stash of Christmas goodies that ended up with us.  Happy to know our cards with our Christmas greetings are on their way to friends and family. We also have antique postcards from Dear’s great great aunt. The postmarks are from 1908-1912.

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We still need to buy our tree to bring home and decorate.

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We’ve had several dry and very cold days. That is about to change so I’m telling myself that today might be the day to go buy our Mystery Tree before the rains come. For those of you new to my blog our Mystery Tree tradition is an idea I borrowed from my sister-in-law Kelly several years ago. We go to the local big box home improvement store and grab a tree that is wrapped with netting and throw it into our truck or car and bring it home without knowing what it will look like. The one thing we look at carefully is how straight the trunk at the bottom of the tree is. When we get it home we set it in it’s tree holder in the right spot in our living room before we cut away the netting and see what we got. We choose to enjoy it no matter what. We’ve found it to be a tradition that works well for us instead of searching for that perfect tree that caused a lot of stress in the past. (The only problem with this reveal is that we don’t get the chance to shake out all the needles that might have accumulated in the netting)

Do you have traditions that carry on from year to year? Do you still send out Christmas cards? Do you do live or artificial for your tree?

Happy Hanukah to any of my Jewish friends who stop by here.

Angels From the Realm of Glory

Angels from the realms of glory,
Wing your flight o’er all the earth;
Ye who sang creation’s story
Now proclaim Messiah’s birth.

Come and worship, come and worship,
Worship Christ, the newborn King.

 

This little one continues to delight us. We were texted a video of her taking steps already. The video showed her taking three steps. Yikes! She’s not even 9 months yet. Mommy and Daddy are going to have to be on their toes to keep track of her.

All our Christmas decor is up now and all that is left is the purchase of our mystery tree and decorating that mystery tree. In the meantime Dear and I are escaping  for a night away to celebrate our anniversary. Hope you all have a good week and that you are enjoying holy nights with the bright lights of Christmas.

O, Come, Little Children

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Oh, Come, Little Children

Oh, come, little children, oh, come, one and all,
To Bethlehem’s stable, in Bethlehem’s stall.
And see with rejoicing this glorious sight,
Our Father in heaven has sent us this night.

Oh, see in the manger, in hallowèd light
A star throws its beam on this holiest sight.
In clean swaddling clothes lies the heavenly Child,
More lovely than angels, this Baby so mild.

Oh, there lies the Christ Child, on hay and on straw;
The shepherds are kneeling before Him with awe.
And Mary and Joseph smile on Him with love,
While angels are singing sweet songs from above.

Words: Christoph von Schmid, 1794

A friend of ours faxed me the music and words for O Come Little Children in the Russian language. I learned this song by heart in Russian and it’s been fun to sing it this week. We have started the Advent Season and I’ll be posting Christmas Music for the rest of the month. Some of the words in Russian translate different than the English version.

Be Merry…

Things have finally settled down enough in our kitchen renovations so I could start decorating for Christmas.

I’ve acquired a few new nativity sets over the last few years. I’ve had a conversation with myself and have agreed to not purchase any more.

Looks like the theme this year at this old house is to Be Merry!

You can see my neighbors lights out the window. They really light up the night! We have not purchased our Mystery Tree yet.

My extra motivation for decorating was our small group Christmas Appetizer potluck. I made Lovella’s Cocktail Sausage Wreath again.

I’ve been real slow in catching up with visits to blogs. I hope to come by soon.

Slowly and surely with long work days things are getting done. The kitchen backsplash is all done and the last thing to do is the new trim around the window above the sink.

Merry and Bright

We met at Herb and Anneliese’s home this year for our annual Mennonite Girls Can Cook Christmas dinner party. We were greeted to their beautiful home and enjoyed many well thought out details of the season.

We all contributed some dishes for our gathering from appetizers to main course and dessert. Julies gluten free roll-ups were a big hit.

It had been a while since this many of us were together and it was good to catch up with one another.

Anneliese went the extra mile with veggies, fried potatoes, cucumber salad and home made rolls along with her Rouladen.

It was Dear and my first time enjoying Anneliese’s Rouladen and Bev’s Spaetzle and both dishes were delicious. Judy’s salad was a great starter to our meal.

For our exchange we decided to each bring one gift from our kitchen or something gathered for our kitchens to share with one another. We brought one gift and left with one gift.

We roused the guys to help take our annual Christmas shot and Lovella’s beloved captured both sides of the photo shoot.

Lovella’s Black Forest Torte and Marg’s Hazelnut Roll topped off the evening.

Dear and I headed for the border at 9:30 and were safely home by 11:10. We had two great border crossings and safe roads. We are in recuperating mode here at this old house. No decorations here yet so it was really nice to enjoy Anneliese’s home all decorated and ready to go.

First Christmas Party of 2017

Dear and I traveled to Abbotsford, Canada yesterday to start off the Christmas season with these “girls” and their husbands. Herb and Anneliese opened their festive and warm home to the 16 of us for the evening. We missed our two Manitoba girls and their husbands. I’ll share photos from our evening together soon. Today I’m recuperating from all that good food and the drive to Canada and home again.

The Prince of Peace Is Come ~ Hymn

The Prince of Peace Is Come

The Prince of Peace is come,
Ye nations shout and sing;
Let men and angels join their songs,
To hail this glorious King.

He takes the servant’s form;
He lays His glory by;
His heavenly Father’s bosom leaves,
And throne of majesty.

Light of the world He comes,
The blind receive their sight;
The mind now feels His gladdening ray,
And all within is light.

Physician blest He came,
And well employs His art;
With ease He makes the bruisèd whole,
And heals the broken heart.

His tears, His sighs and pains
Ease to the wounded give;
The kind physician dies to make
The dying patients live.

The great Redeemer comes,
And sounds a jubilee:
He burst the prison doors, and bids
The captive souls go free.

Evangelist divine,
He makes the Gospel known;
The poor the joyful tidings hear,
And their great prophet own.

Whilst gracious God I hear
Thy Gospel’s joyful sound,
May my glad heart, my tongue, my life,
Be all obedience found.

Words: John Needham, 1768.

Starting Fresh with Hodgepodge…

1. Share one favorite moment/memory from your Christmas holiday.
 15747502_10211510518384524_8505381520756214670_nOur Nutcracker Christmas Crackers had little whistle/flutes in them and instructions to toot some Christmas songs together. It was so much fun with us laughing so much we snorted and maybe drooled a bit while trying to toot our whistles upon demand. Each whistle was numbered to created the right tone/note. Oye…it was fun!
2. What was the best thing you ate over the holidays? Was it homemade or store bought? If it was homemade did you make it?
swedishSwedish pancakes on Christmas morning are the best. 1st because Dear cooks them. 2nd because we all love them. A tradition that will not be broken.

3. What was one of the most beautiful things you saw over the holidays?

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People, people, people are the most beautiful things we saw over the holidays. A very beautiful thing was that our oldest flew to eastern Washington to help his brother and sister in law move into their new home in frigid temperatures. Our boys have a way of being able to motivate and help each other in good and tough times and it’s a beautiful thing to see and hear about.

4. What does fresh start mean to you?

Fresh Start was the name of my home cleaning business that I started in the late 80’s and early 90’s and that’s the first thing that came to mind with this question. Dear was in Pharmacy School for a mid-life change in his profession and I cleaned toilets to make money in several homes and at a medical and dental clinic. Of course I cleaned more than toilets but you get the idea. The work was so aerobic and I was so skinny.

5. On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being very positive and 1 being not so great) how would you rate 2016 in terms of personal achievement and well being? Explain.

If I take my fluff out of the equation I’d give myself an 8!

van 2 035I’m still fluffy but besides that my health and outlook are good. I am not taking any medications. An IT Band Syndrome is still plaguing me even though I’m not a runner by any stretch of the imagination. Exercises to strengthen my core and take the strain off my IT band are helping. It generally takes a lot to get me down and I’m thankful for that. So…I’ll stick with an 8!

6. Every January 1st since 1976 Lake Superior University has published a list of words they’d like to see banished from the Queen’s English. Words may be banished due to misuse, overuse, or just general uselessness. Go here to read more about how the words were chosen or, if you’re like me, to find out what in the world the word or phrase even means or the context in which it’s used. There were quite a few on this year’s list I’d never heard before. Here’s the 2017 list of banished words-You, Sir-focus-Bete Noire-Town Hall Meeting-Post Truth-guesstimate-831-historic-manicured-echo chamber-on fleek-bigly-ghost-Dadbod-listicle-get your dander up-selfie drone-frankenfruit-disruption. Which word on the list would you most like to see banished in 2017? What word or phrase would you add to the list?

I’m tired of hearing about Town Hall Meetings. Another one I’d like to not hear again is “Gun Control”.

7. Large or small, light or deep, share with us one goal you have for the new year.
misc-stuff-028I got this fitbit for Christmas and I’d like to add the light goal of moving more.
My deep goal is to pray more.
 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18:
Rejoice always,  pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
8. Insert your own random thought here.
I’ve got a recipe for Crock Pot Potato soup inspired from bj’s blog and Paula Deen up on the Mennonite Girls Can Cook blog. It was easy and satisfying. Click on over to see it.
The illustration at the top of this post is Russian and the words translate Happy New Year. I wish you all a very Happy New Year!
Linking up with Joyce at From This Side of the Pond. She provides the questions and we provide the answers.