GiST #40

Such a lovely Christmas yesterday and a wonderful day today! I have more than five to list today!

1. There is a great difference in the loving flavor of Christmas when there's a child in the house celebrating too. Our little grandson came over with his father to spend a couple of hours with us. Since we'd all gotten up rather late we hadn't gotten around to opening any gifts yet. I have this Christmas ornament pickle and it's been a tradition since my first marriage to hide the pickle somewhere in the tree. When the kids were small, they had great fun hunting for it. I still put it in the tree every year but now that everyone's grown up, that game's lost its charm for the kids.

*BUT* since we'd gotten off to a late start, Little T was very much interested and excited about finding this pickle. It brought back a lot of the lovely magic!

2. Anyone who might think re-gifting doesn't work, check this out:



3. Grandparents have just as much fun as little kids do with educational hand held games!



4. TB gave me a bird he'd made himself out of a couple of pieces of wood that came from an old beat up dresser. He'd shown me the bird before and I marveled over it, amazed at what he was able to do with his tools. He didn't give it to me at first because I'd seen it already but then finally brought it out.

5. Today we went to the family holiday party. It's always so much fun, especially since all (or nearly all) the family gets together on this occasion! The grace I was going to mention is that it's so wonderful to see the younger generation stepping up and becoming so involved! These young people who were children or in their teens when I married TB are now young adults. This year niece Heather hosted the gathering. She's about 21 and I thought it awesome she undertook such a huge gathering of the clan!

6. I met two fine young men who were totally unfazed by the family's zaniness--Zeb and Dan, boyfriends of sisters Heather and Julie. I was really impressed with their character. Zeb worked really hard behind the scenes and also alongside Heather, setting up, cleaning up and participating. Dan has a great sense of humor and fit right in.

7. White elephants are so much fun to begin with but throw in the now traditional reappearing plastic helmet and you've got a really goofy and hilarious game! TB and I weren't sure if the helmet would show up this year as one brother, wife and children wasn't able to come and so we brought a mini-helmet just in case. Well ... it turns out someone else had the same thought and brought a Raggedy Ann cap with dangling bangs and red braids! So these helmets and cap were going around the room like a hot potato as we kept "stealing" them from one another. The game finally ended when the last gift was chosen and open.

8. The wonder of babies! Nephew Tim and his wife Alicia were there with little Landon, who's 5 months old now. I held him, rocked him, and let him teethe on my finger. It brought back such warm memories of when my kids were babies...and memories of my grandson too. His eyes took in everything and I watched as he "found" his fingers. Everything is so new and such a miraculous thing to a baby!

9. A good laugh: we found out my son's car wouldn't start because he'd forgotten to put it in park when he turned the ignition key! As he said to me, red-faced: "This is why, when you call tech support, they always ask you first off if your computer is *on*." Hee hee

10. I felt proud that my son's turkey made such a big hit. Family members kept saying they'd never tasted a turkey so moist. :)

11. I enjoyed listening as my kids explained to my MIL why we celebrate Christmas in December when that probably wasn't when Jesus was born. I enjoyed watching them cut up and have a wonderful time at this family party.

GiST 39: Christmas Eve Blessings

We are all home together to watch It's A Wonderful Life, one of the most meaningful Christmas movies I've ever seen. It especially means so much this year!

We made arrangements to see our little grandson tomorrow morning.

Christ is all around us. The air is filled with love.

We are warm.

We have delicious cookies to eat, baked lovingly by Kristin.

GiST #37

'Tis the season, right?

We're having a really rough time though.

Although we applied to have our mortgage restructured, Bank of America is taking its sweet merry time deciding whether or not it'll happen for us.

We need the brakes on our car fixed but can't afford to repair them.

Bill's car broke down on Friday. We need to give him rides to and from work because he has no money to fix his car either.

Kristin has no snow boots and neither does Heidi.

We missed out on the pantry pick-ups this month at St. Ann's. We got held up at the doctor's office on the 10th. That's when we were supposed to sign up for the Christmas pick-up. I wasn't able to get our monthly food voucher from Family Services because we weren't able to get there for Kristin's scheduled appt. on the 19th. Next one isn't until Jan 2. We make just a little too much money in income to qualify for any food stamp assistance.

Bill needs Concerta but can't afford to go to the doctor to get his script renewed. He's on the year program created by the drug manufacturer but needs to be able to see a doctor to get a new script every month.

Heidi can't afford to get to the doctor either for her asthma.

TB keeps gluing his crown back onto his tooth because we have no dental insurance. He's got an appt at the clinic but it's his first visit there so I don't know if they'll fix the crown for him. I hope they do. He's been gluing the tooth together since before Thanksgiving.

We can't afford to get everyone presents for Christmas like we'd like to.

But the reasons I can find to be merry in spite of all that:

1. We have a roof over our heads -- so many don't.
2. We are warm -- so many aren't.
3. We can have three meals a day -- so many are hungry.
4. Everyone will get a gift -- so many won't get anything at all.
5. God works wonders in our lives. He loves all of us.