Four Decades Plus!

Christmas 1977

Christmas 2017

Christmas in 1977 was before we had any children and Christmas 2017 was our first Christmas with a granddaughter. Forty years of Christmases. Some merrier than others but all enjoying the benefits of God’s saving grace in our lives.

Merry Christmas to each and every one of you who faithfully check in to see what’s up in my corner of the world. I thank God for you and am grateful for the chance to get to know you via your blogs. I’ll be back after Christmas when…

The Christmas stockings are emptied.

The boxes and gift wrap are all recycled.

The Breakfast Swedish Pancakes are devoured.

The Christmas Music plays on my new 6cd changer.

The Christmas Prime Rib Roast is prepared and eaten with all the trimmings.

The Christmas Crackers are popped.

The Christmas photos are taken.

The Christmas dishes are washed and put away until next Christmas.

The Christmas gifts are enjoyed.

And we continue to worship and adore our Savior, the Savior of the world all year long. God with us, Emmanuel. “Blessed art thou, O Lord.”

All This Night Bright Angels Sing

(Song of the Angels – William Bouguereau, 1881)

All This Night Bright Angels Sing

All this night bright angels sing,
Never was such caroling,
Hark! a voice which loudly cries,
Mortals, mortals, wake and rise.
Lo! to gladness turns your sadness:
From the earth is ris’n a Son,
Shines all night tho’ day be done.

Wake, O earth, wake every thing,
Wake and hear the joy I bring:
Wake and joy; for all this night,
Heav’n and every twinkling light,
All amazing, still stand gazing,
Angels, pow’rs and all that be,
Wake, and joy this Son to see.

Hail! O Son, O blessèd Light,
Sent into this world by night;
Let Thy rays and heav’nly pow’rs,
Shine in these dark souls of ours.
For most duly, Thou art truly
God and Man, we do confess:
Hail, O Sun of Righteousness!

Words: William Austin, (?- 1633.)

Vareniki, Christmas Tradition

These are photos from over 5 years ago on two separate cooking days before Christmas. I got the photos from my nieces.

This photo above is from 2012, the last Vareniki day with our mom.

It’s been 5 years now since my sisters and nieces have been able to have Vareniki cooking day with our mom. This event usually happens the weekend before Christmas. Our mom left this earth in September of 2013. I’m proud of my sisters and nieces for keeping this tradition alive without our mom’s guidance. It’s our family tradition to have these filled cheese dumplings for dessert on Christmas Eve. The cheese filling is a lightly sweetened Russian style farmer’s cheese. These filled creations are enjoyed after dinner on Christmas Eve. After making the dough, filling them with cheese, pinching them just right like our mom taught us, they are simmered until they float, cooled, and stored for Christmas Eve. To serve they are placed evenly in a glass casserole dish and baked with butter and half and half until bubbly. They are served hot topped with sour cream and syrup.  I’m going to have to have a breakthrough and try making these with my girls. We also enjoy them for breakfast.

Today my two older sisters, one of my brothers and sister in laws and 3 of my nieces are getting together to continue the Vareniki tradtion.

I received this next photos from my nieces at their Vareniki making today at my oldest sister’s home. I loved the hashtags my nieces used like #webelongtomoisiandnadia #newkitchenhelpers #makingbabaproud

My sister Kathy with her grandson, Jackson.

My sister Vera, niece Debbee, sister Kathy, grandniece Avery, niece Melissa, niece Michelle, and sister in law Letty.

My niece Michelle teaching her daughter, Avery, the pinching skills.

My grandnephew, Jackson. Two new helpers this year from the next generation!

Quotes of the Week 9

“A child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where he was homeless
Are you and I at home:
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,…
But our hearts we lost—how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.” –G.K. Chesterton, “The House of Christmas,”

No priest, no theologian stood at the manger of Bethlehem. And yet all Christian theology has its origin in the wonder of all wonders: that God became human. Holy theology arises from knees bent before the mystery of the divine child in the stable. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

John Piper: “You never, never, never outgrow your need for this gospel. You don’t begin the Christian life with this and then leave it behind. God strengthens us with the gospel till the day we die.”

Christmas in the 60’s

Christmases at 305 Los Angeles Avenue in Montebello, California.

The eight surviving Bagdanov kids. I’m the one in yellow, youngest of the first 5 (our oldest sister died in Iran when she was 2). My parents had four more children after me. The two youngest amongst us are twins.

Me with my two older sisters.

Our brother Fred is missing from this photo. Can’t remember why. Oops…just realized this one is probably Easter, not Christmas.

Christmas morning at our little babushka’s apartment a few doors down from the Russian Baptist Church in Los Angeles.

Nadia and Moisi, our dear parents. This will be our first Christmas without both our parents.

Hope all is merry and bright in your corner of the world.

Six Days Till Christmas!!

Stay calm and listen to Christmas music. Our new 6 CD changer arrived yesterday and we are happy to have our favorite Christmas music playing again. It’s not fun to have your trusty cd changer stop functioning at Christmas. We realize that Cd changers might not be around for long so replacing ours while only two models are available on Amazon was a good move for us. How about you? Do you still use a cd changer or have you moved on to some other source for music?

Wonder

In January of 1958 our little brother Tim was born. I was so excited to have a baby brother. I’m seven in this photo. I was the baby of our family for seven years until Tim was born. We had to put the tree on a table to keep it out of Tim’s reach. That tinsel is so inviting to those little fingers along with everything else that sparkles. It was fun to enjoy Christmas with an 11 month old. I was a sick little girl during this time. The best information I have is that I had some kind of kidney infection that required a hospital stay and then a few months of recovery. I remember having a home teacher and missing Valentine’s Day at school. My home teacher brought me a bag full of Valentines from my classmates. I also remember not being able to have any salt and having to drink a lot of water. After a while a glass of water looked like medicine to me. Hmmm, maybe that’s why I don’t like to be told to drink water to this day. I enjoy it in moderation. 🙂

Bloggers are very busy this week and have little time for visiting so I’m taking the opportunity to put a little Christmas history on my blog that will help my memory now and later.

We’re having a little Christmas Open House on Sunday and I need to come up with a few appetizers and some sweets and we need to decide on some festive drinks. There are so many great choices out there, I just need to choose from among them! Glad our first beyond the family event at our Country Bungalow will be small.

Christmas Past Mosaics

2013 Nativities. I’ve gone a little overboard adding 5 more nativity sets since 2013.

2014 Joy is always a strong theme at Christmas time.

2015

2016

2017: Our most delightful Christmas addition.

These are all mosaics made with Picasa on my good ole laptop that died in November. I’m still looking for a program to create mosaics/collages on my new computer.

Our little Addy has changed so much since last Christmas.

December 2018

And for context, below was our view on our way to church this morning. We had a couple of inches of snow overnight that turned to rain while we were in church so now everything is pretty slushy.

Linking up with Angie for Mosaic Monday. Thank you for hosting, Angie!

Only 9 days until Christmas! Are you ready? We don’t have our tree up yet.