Best of Our Christmas

Here are a few highlights from my Christmas:

• Watching my daughter master the art of toy train engineering in less than one hour!
• The look of wonder and awe when our toddler said, 'Look at all these presents...(hugs herself) for me!'
• Napping in the middle of Christmas morning's mess while my husband laughs and giggles with our daughter's trains.
• The wonderful music of our Christmas Eve services.
• Eating yummy Christmas morning breakfast pizza.
• Not being able to sleep at 1am after 4 worship services because I cannot wait for my daughter to see her presents.
• The fact that it took our daughter 2 hours and 45 minutes to open her presents because she kept stopping to play with her train, or play with the toy she just opened. (Clothes were ignored.)
• The gorgeous flowers my husband got me after I ruined the Christmas Eve turkey and had a fit of tears as a result.

I pray you had wonderful memories and moments this Christmas as well!

CHRISTmas Eve 5

We did it! We brought in Christmas- Calvary in Brownsburg style!

With 1015 people!

Thanks to all the amazing volunteers, musicians, staff and of course, the Holy Spirit for keeping us going!

Merry Christmas- officially!

CHRISTmas Eve 4.5

Oh- by the way- before he harps at me again.

I need to give credit where credit is due and thank Aaron for a line in my 5pm Children's Sermon. It was his idea to talk about the angel's scaring the shepherds so much that ..."they might have pee'd their pants (or robes or whatever)".

Yep- his idea!

CHRISTmas Eve 4

A habit could be formed from attending and worshipping at Christmas Eve worship services! (I actually think Calvary already has a few of those addicts- folks who are attending more than one service just for the thrill of it.)

It has been such fun watching our congregation greet and love on each other! College students are seeing friends they haven't seen in awhile. Our military personell are receiving hugs and salutes from folks who have been praying for them. And I have see several Calvary families that I haven't seen in a while... gosh that is great.

All that lovin' and greetin' has been a bonus this year- that and the awesome luminaries!

My slippers are on; ate a little power snack; Diet Coke is in hand; and my feet are up!

See you all at the 11pm service!

One more service to go and then, I think, we can officially declare it a Merry Christmas!

CHRISTmas Eve 3

WOW- the music at our 7pm service was enough to "throw you under your chair" to quote our esteemed youth director! Wow! That and the candle light was awesome. Not a seat or dry eye left in the place!

Merry, Merry Christmas!

Now we go and do it again!

CHRISTmas Eve 2

5:00pm service was loud, noisy, busy, and wonderfully young! I wonder what the average age was? 13? We had soooooooooooo many children and babies! I am not sure if anyone was actually able to hear the sermon.

I got choked up on the Luke 2:1-20 passage which I have read lots of times but, was especially poignant for me in that moment of reading.

Wow- is God good or what?!?!

Now, off to do the 7pm service! See you in a few!

CHRISTmas Eve 1

Forty eight minutes and counting before we begin our first of four worship services tonight! While this is Calvary's second Christmas in the new building, it is my first! Am I soooo excited! The sanctuary is gorgeous with the most beautiful poinsettias ever! (Notice I use lots of !'s when I get excited!)

Jesus' manager is filled with fresh straw. His table for Holy Communion is set. The luminaries are ready to be lit. The candles are prepared with fire extinguishers in close proximity. The praise band is warming up for the 5pm service. Brass and vocal choirs will be here before the 7pm service.

All we need is the Holy Family to arrive along with about 1,000 other worshippers! Oh- and hopefully, my boss will be here soon...because I have not prepared a sermon. (Hey, just as I wrote this he walked in- thank goodness! Whew.)

Now, I just need to decide which of the three children sermon ideas I want to use....

See you in a few...

All My Family Wants for Christmas...

All, the loved ones I live with, want for Christmas is either a set of ear plugs; a freshly tuned piano; or for me to stop practicing Christmas carols.

I have to admit I am not the pianist I used to be.

But it has been fun to tickle the ivories and stretch my stiff fingers with after dinner piano caroling. This experiences has brought back memories of my various piano teachers through the years. And brought back the nervous horror of recitals, concerts, and solo/ensemble contests.

You know, its weird, but I just realized that I either had piano teachers who were nuns or they had lots of cats. What is up with that?!

Anyway, I am not sure what I'll do after dinner on December 26th to terrorize, oh, I mean entertain my family. Maybe a little jazz...

Commentary on Comments

The other fellows that I work with have all done a blog on the comments they have received. Good for them. They have received comments and I have not. They also have facial hair and gratefully, I do not.

But, I thought it would be fun to share the two comments that have come my way. When asking my spouse at the dinner table what he thinks about my blog, a grunt and "Did you put too much garlic in this again?" was the response.

My three year old has a fuller response. Last week as we drove to my work and her childcare we passed about eight different churches. An announcement was made from the backseat, "Momma, I can't like those churches."

"Why, Sweetie? They love Jesus too."

"Momma, I can't like those churches... (big sigh)... 'cause I like your church better (giggle)."

The vote is in... she likes my church, but cannot read and therefore has no idea what her mother writes...

Standing Up for Christmas!

Everyone who waits on me (grocery story, checkout, drive thru, bank etc) is going to hear, "Merry Christmas!" I am proud to celebrate the birth of the Savior of the world.

Our Ultimate Hero, Jesus, is a really cool guy. And He loves everybody unconditionally, even those (especially those) who make fun of him and call him names. Yes, he is like Rudolph in that way. Jesus loves us. He forgives us. And challenges and equips with His grace to try life fresh, new and different than what we've done before. That sounds better than any New Year's resolution!

Sales ads may call it "holiday shopping" or "holiday trees" or "happy holidays", but for me it is the Christ in Christmas that matters. So, it is Happy Birthday Jesus! Happy Incarnation Day- God! And Happy Future-coming-into-the-world-to-save-it-and-us-from-ourselves Day! That is what Christmas is about...and I am proud to celebrate!

Holiday Drizzle

While parts of the US are covered in snow or ice, we in the middle of Indiana have rain. And lots of it.

Kinda makes shopping a drag. Christmas cards have ink smudges. Wrapping paper gets ruined. And don't even ask about the boxes of stuff on my front porch ordered on ebay that are now drying... I really don't think that there are any holiday songs that wish you a soggy Christmas.

I guess the only good thing about all this is- at least we are not in a drought.

Puppy's First Snow

Our family's greatest joy and entertainment came early this morning. We stood with our noses pressed against the cold glass of our sliding glass back door. There standing on the precipice of the deck step was our eight month old labrador retriever. The three of us couldn't take our eyes off him. What would he do?

Shocked by the cold wet white stuff all over his domain (our backyard) he stood perfectly still and stared at it. Stood there for a good 3 minutes. Unmoving. The he turned around and scratched on the door to be let into the house. We encouraged, we yelled, we hollared at him to go and 'do his business' in the snow, but he wouldn't go.

Finally, my husband put on his coat and shoes and walked the pup out into the snow. Where he jumped around in it; sniffed it; sneezed it back out of his nose; and then suddenly took off in a puppy like crazy sprint through the entire yard!

He wouldn't come in for 20 minutes. When he did, he wanted back out.

I think, our pup likes snow now!

Mothers at Christmas

After paying attention to both the local and nationals news media, these past two weeks, I find myself deeply saddened by the multiple reports of mothers abusing and several murdering their young children here in the USA. Words are lost on me for these children... and their mothers.

In the season of Advent, the Christian Church prepares to welcome the Savior of the world as we recognize the anniversary of his birth and as we await His final coming into the world. We celebrate by telling the stories of two amazing mothers... Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, and Mary, the mother of Jesus.

I trust and believe that these two mothers who were able to minister and nurture one another, grieve for these situations today. And I do believe God cares about them as well.

If you know a single mom who is working, raising kids, or mothers who are frazzled anmd overwhelmed for whatever reason- please be kind. Reach out to these women. Help them and most of all help their children by offering kindness, understanding, love, and patience!