Christmas: Don't Treat A Gift Like a Burden

At this time of year, many of us begin to feel the mounting pressure of the holiday season as it looms before us on the horizon. Christmas, the joyous celebration of the birth of Christ, takes on the shape of a burden and not the gift it should be. We begin to "treat a gift like a burden."*

I've thought a lot about Christmas these past two years as I was researching and writing The History of Christmas. I've wondered what should Christmas look like, how stressful should a realistic holiday be, and how should my family go about celebrating it?

The most surprising result of my history research was realizing how much of our current idea of Christmas, and how it should be celebrated, was formed by writers in the 19th century who created fictional accounts of Christmas that the public adopted as non-fiction records of Christmases past. Think Charles Dickens and Washington Irving. Dickens and Irving made us feel that Christmas was a hugely sentimental and nostalgic time, a time with no end to the festivities and merry-making and cheer that should be participated in. Their writings served a beautiful purpose to bring joy back into the lives of their original readers at a time when Christmas was not as widely celebrated, but those same writings have tended to fuel burdens for subsequent generations as we try to live up to a nostalgic feeling at Christmas.

In my view, Christmas is a gift that's meant to brighten our lives and encourage our hearts at one of the most joy-less times of year. Before Christmas was a Christian holiday, it was a pagan celebration -- one that took place at the darkest time of the year. It was a time of festivity that helped people endure the dark and depressing cold of midwinter. When Christianity spread north, people kept the midwinter celebration but changed its focus. It became a joyous midwinter celebration of the birth of Christ, the Savior of the world. As a Christian, I not only have a joyous midwinter festival to look forward to, but one more opportunity to focus my mind and heart on Christ, on whom hangs the entire meaning of my religion.

As part of a denomination that does not feel bound by a Scriptural mandate to celebrate the birth of Christ in a particular way, I have great freedom to treat Christmas as a gift, and not a burden. I am free to celebrate it in a small way, or a great way, or even not at all. As a Christian I am commanded to love God and love mankind. For me, Christmas can be a means to both those ends! And those ends can also be a means of keeping Christmas from becoming a burden. When I ask myself, "Is this activity going to enable me to love others? Will it enable me to care for myself and my family? Will it grow my heart into a greater love for God?" I gain a better perspective on how to spend my time and energy during the holiday season.

So does this mean I have it all figured out  about how to keep Christmas from becoming stressful? Of course not! But thinking through these things, and having a framework for making decisions, goes a long way toward minimizing stress.

Here are a few more practical ideas:

Make a list -- Brenda taught me to write down a list at the beginning of the holiday season. This list should contain what is most important to you about the approaching weeks. If it's long, circle the three most important things. This helps focus energy in the right direction. Consider asking each member of your household what is the one thing they are looking forward to most over the holidays -- put those on the list and not the ten or twenty other things that could also be fun.

Rotate your traditions -- if it's too stressful to have all your traditions every year -- take a break. Do something this year and leave another thing for next year. Rather than do everything, do a few things with the promise you will do the other things next year.

Pick your poison -- decide what you are willing to be stressed out about and what you aren't, what you are willing to give up a night at home for and what you aren't. You do have agency (the ability to make decisions about your life)! As you decide, remind yourself that you are signing up for stress, or choosing to miss a good thing for the better thing that might be rest. Sometimes stress is worth it, sometimes not.

Why do you celebrate Christmas? -- do you have a working purpose in your mind for why you celebrate this holiday and go through the stressful motions that it sometimes takes? Every person's reason will be different. Mine revolves around the blessing of a celebration during a very bleak time of year which I can exploit to enable me to think more on God's love for me and share that love with others. If you can call to mind the purpose behind the stress, that often brings mental strength to keep going.

Remember it's a season of sacrifice -- quoting Gretchen Rubin again, Christmas is often a "season of sacrifice" for anyone involved in making it a special time for others. Despite careful planning, limits, self-denial, this month may call for an extra measure of sacrifice. Remember, the season does end! January is a wonderful time to hide away and recuperate!

Read this book -- Living the Season Well: Reclaiming Christmas by Jody Lee Collins. This book helped me to think more about simplifying Christmas. The future of this holiday is in our hands. How we celebrate it today will teach the next generation. Christmas has been a changing holiday since its earliest origins and it will continue to change. We can have a say in what those changes are!

Ponder how you can treat Christmas as a gift, and not a burden.

*thanks to Gretchen Rubin for her phrase, "Don't treat a gift like a burden."

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Christmas Book List 2019

It's that time of year to order Christmas books from the library or your favorite bookstore! Here are the books I'm currently recommending for this festive time of year:

 A Literary Christmas: An Anthology by the British Library
I just got this book from the library and am excited to read it this season! The book is arranged around themes such as Before Christmas, The Nativity, Christmas Day, A Child's Christmas, or Seasonal Snow and Ice. Within each theme are up to ten works by famous authors: poems, story excerpts, essays. The authors include William Wordsworth, Emily Bronte, G. K. Chesterton, Samuel Pepys, George Eliot, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kenneth Grahame, and Charles Dickens, among many, many others. It's just the sort of book one can dive into for a few minutes at a time and come away with something to think on.

The History of Christmas by Heather Winslow LeFebvre
Of course I have to recommend my own book! I feel passionate that everyone should understand what they are celebrating (or not) and why. My book is aimed at 8-14 year olds but is also ideal for adults who want a quick overview of Christmas history, and for young children who will enjoy the illustrations (done by my mom!). There's even activities, recipes, and suggested questions.



 Christmas books by Tasha Tudor
I'm on a Tasha Tudor kick right now -- although to some extent I always am. I've added a number of her books to my collection this year as well as discovered that one can reasonably come by an advent calendar of hers! My all-time favorite is Becky's Christmas, probably because so much in the book resonates with my own family's traditions. Here are a few books to check out:

The Dolls' Christmas
Becky's Christmas
The Christmas Cat
A Time to Keep: The Tasha Tudor Book of Holidays
Take Joy!: The Tasha Tudor Christmas Book
A Book of Christmas
Tasha Tudor's Advent Calendar: A Wreath of Days
Corgiville Christmas
Tasha Tudor's Favorite Christmas Carols
Snow Before Christmas
The Night Before Christmas (illustrated by Tasha Tudor)


The Jolly Christmas Postman by Janet & Allan Ahlberg
I've purchased this book for a surprise for the younger kids this year. What's not to love about little pockets filled with pull-out letters and other surprises along the way! It makes me want to be a mailman! Or at the least, write lots of real letters to people.


 The Christmas Stories of George MacDonald
I pulled this off my shelf this morning and need to read it this season. I've been studying the (interesting) life of George MacDonald this year and this will be just the thing to add to my growing knowledge of his works.


 Lucy & Tom's Christmas by Shirley Hughes
Next to Becky's Christmas, this might be my other favorite! I love this peak into a traditional British Christmas in the late 1990's. Shirley Hughes is one of my very favorite illustrators. She has many, many books, so check them out throughout the year!


Unwrapping the Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp
I love this advent devotional and have used it several years in a row with our children.

 Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher
My favorite adult fiction read for December. I'm always on the lookout for new good Christmas-time stories. I have a hard time finding exactly what I like. Someday I will have to fill this gap by attempting to write my own.

 Advent Calendars
I purchased a new advent calendar on our fall family vacation and then realized that all these years I probably could have been collecting advent calendars on Amazon! Yes! They are available! Search for German advent calendars and you'll come across more traditional types. Through various situations, we now have three new-to-us advent calendars for December! I'm so excited! (It's the little things that matter....)

And that's my recommendation for this year! If you have books you love that I haven't mentioned, please comment and let me know! I am always looking for new Christmas books!

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The History of Christmas Book

For those of you who have not heard elsewhere, my mom and I have collaborated on a book, coming out early this summer: The History of Christas: 2000 Years of Faith, Fable, and Festivity. I've written the words, and my mom's painted the illustrations!

In 12 chapters, this book will take you on a journey from Christ's birth in Bethlehem through 2,000 years of church history to our modern day celebrations. It covers all the stuff: the biblical account, the  pagan festivals, the decision for December 25 (or not), the development of Santa Claus, etc. And, it includes discussion questions, suggested Scripture readings, activities and recipes!

The book is filled with my mom's wonderful illustrations!

We hope our book will give you valuable information, entertain you with stories and pictures, enlarge your heart in the knowledge of Christ's love for us, and inspire you to show love to others.

We'll be sure to let you know when this book is available on Amazon! To receive news and updates first, be sure to sign up for my newsletter (form in sidebar).

A Few Christmas Scenes

Well, Christmas has come and gone. It always feels like the work will never be done but then the day arrives and after that it's time to pack it all away for another year.

The baking all got done and I even got the Christmas Dinner table set on Saturday night before Christmas Eve.

We were invited to friends' for Christmas Eve lunch and it was such a treat: lightly falling snow outside, seeing our friend's brand new home, eating on Friendly Village china (a shared love), enjoying good fellowship. It was a gift!

The dessert table...yum, yum!

There was time for Laura's weekly Sunday afternoon tea, which felt even more festive being Christmas Eve.

The living room was ready for Christmas morning!

After church we had our family pow-wow but it included extra special food treats: Portuguese cheese puffs sent from down the street, crispy chicken, pears, apples, fancy cheeses and nuts sent from another friend.

I had my red shoes on -- a little gift from my mom.

And then it was Christmas! And a white Christmas at that! The kids get up around 8 to do their stockings and by the time breakfast is ready it ends up being 10 am for present-opening. We started with the Queen's speech which made me almost teary-eyed this year. One never knows when it will be her last speech and she is a huge role model for me personally. We read Luke 2 and then came the presents.

Traditional morning food:

Laura looked super cheery in her new scarf!!!

My mom arrived and joined the fun as Michael handed out what was under the tree.

The older boys were pretty excited about their warms scarves and soccer balls.

There was an hour to sit and enjoy some hot tea and bask in the glow of the holiday before guests began to arrive. We had friends from church and three new friends we had never met -- international students from downtown. It was so fun to get to know them and learn about their countries of origin (India and Sri Lanka). Several people played games, there were meat pies, cheeseballs, spiced olives, and hot cider to enjoy as well.

Part way through the afternoon I started in on Christmas dinner with help from several of our guests. One guest even made an impromptu pan of Indian chicken which was SO good. Around about 6:30 it was time to eat!

We had chicken with leek sauce, ham, potatoes a la Nigel Slater, colored carrots, Sri Lankan potato and fish balls, asparagus, rolls, roasted butternut squash, mashed cauliflower, and a fancy jello I was trying out for something else.

We had fun introducing our guests to British Christmas crackers with the crowns and jokes inside.

Then we congregated in the living room for another first for most: a White Elephant game. Plenty of fun and laughter.

We ended the evening by bringing in the flaming Christmas pudding with the lights dimmed and everyone singing, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." It was so much fun!

And now today we've packed Christmas away and just this hour divided up the last mince pies: two per person. School begins tomorrow, my Paint Your Cake and Eat It Too class begins tomorrow, and Rachel leaves for Spain on Wednesday. 

A very Happy New Year to you all! May God bless you in this year ahead.

December 23

Today felt like Christmas Eve: it was an all-day baking day, neighbors were delivering cards, the house was getting cleaned up (slowly but surely). Best of all it snowed this morning! The snow is melted now but there is a promise of more to come tomorrow!

A few neighbors gathered for tea this morning -- an hour out of our busy days that few of us could afford but we wanted that rare connection with each other, and we had it! We sipped tea, enjoyed Christmas treats, talked about what we were cooking -- the four of us at the table represented four different countries of origin so that meant quite a few different Christmas traditions and foods.

Back at home the baking loomed like a dangerous mountain I had to climb but didn't want to. Because of our allergies and sensitivities if I didn't bake we wouldn't eat. There is no popping in a shop and taking the easy way out. At times I felt the drudgery of it but there were also moments that were special -- the ones when the kids came in the kitchen for a few minutes to lend a hand.

The Christmas pudding went into the pot before the morning tea, so it boiled away most of the day while I baked the cookies. One child was bribed with computer time to make the mince pies while I was away. There were tea rings and gluten free tea rings and a million meat pies for our traditional hike. I also found myself babysitting a jello salad which I needed to try out before my class begins next week. You would think making jello was easy, but not when you have to wait for layers to partially set and then almost fully set, etc. I'm so done with jello molds -- but I'll have to make it all over again for the class!

I roped two children into wrapping all the stocking stuffers which helped a great deal. I can hardly believe that by 8 p.m. all the baking was done and the table nearly set. Michael suddenly got the idea to have a White Elephant gift exchange on Christmas with all our visitors so he volunteered to go to Walmart to get what we needed (I was very impressed). Andrew was checking on me every five minutes begging for a haircut so we managed to get that done and then James was patiently waiting for me to finish sewing his new stocking which he designed (it includes leather). Maybe we will get to bed at a decent hour tonight!

I think this will be the last of my "advent calendar" posts. Tomorrow we enter that blissful day of no to-do lists. There will be church morning and evening and we've been invited to lunch with friends which will be a huge treat. I think maybe we'll read Becky's Christmas for Laura's tea time and then after evening church we have some goodies set aside for our Christmas Eve family pow-wow. And then it will be Christmas.

A very Merry Christmas to you all!

December 22

Christmas is closing in and the parents are feeling this keenly. Today was the beginning of my baking, a very strange feeling for me as I used to begin even in November! I seem to bake less and less each year. Perhaps that is good, for many reasons. I also made the last, I hope, run to the grocery store.

There was a lovely reprieve over lunch when a friend came by for a visit and we sat with a candle burning and the greyness of the day out the windows and the cheery Christmas colors inside. Another sweet moment was when a neighbor acquaintance rang the doorbell and delivered a beautiful tray of assorted homemade cookies.

Michael volunteered to help with the wrapping tonight and he's been holed up in our closet for hours. As I was mixing up the last batch of cookie dough I found we had no peppermint flavoring left! Just the time to have a child with a driver's license who actually needed to go to the store anyway! Thank you Rachel!

Michael and I are fighting colds, hoping we can make it through the weekend and not get worse! Also feeling thankful these are only colds and not something worse.

It was very warm here today -- low 50's but I see the temperature is going to drop sharply tomorrow and we have the promise of a bit of snow. Very exciting!

I think I better go rescue Michael and see if we can get some rest before the final day of prep tomorrow!

December 21

Today was a Mom-Rachel day. Rachel's about to head out to Spain on January 3rd and today was the only day we had to shop for her trip, get a haircut, find a few clothing items, etc. So off we went for another day on the road. We were fairly successful in the five and a half ours we were out. Rachel began to fade half way through and I had to convince her that she needed a Starbucks (??!!) to keep going. Sure enough, it helped.

In Zionsville we crashed a mystery lunch at the local tearoom on a mission to get a packet of tea and probably ended up in everyone's home videos as they took turns singing Christmas carols. We also now know where to find local, Indiana-themed gifts, and where not to find them.

We limped into the driveway with a few minutes to devote to my J. R. R. Tolkien lesson plan and a few minutes to throw taco meat on the stove before Michael and I drove away to see Murder on the Orient Express with some friends and the kids went their separate ways for the evening.

And now we come to the weekend of Christmas! It's here! I'm a little overwhelmed by the mountain of food prep yet to be climbed, namely the baking. But there are a few treats of visits with people along the way to help me along. And, I hope, only one more shopping trip to make.

Sleep well!

December 20

Today was an especially delightful day. I got to spend the morning with two dear friends in the beautifully decorated and festive home of one of them, enjoying conversation, good food, tea, and just the kind of fellowship that a soul needs at Christmas. Our hearts were brimming as we left.

Checking my texts as I got in the car I found news of the birth of a dear friend's baby boy. Another reason for great joy. It's made me happy all day just thinking about that precious child.

The fun over, it was time to hit the shops: Costco, Payless Shoes, Trader Joe's, Joann Fabrics, Thrifty Threads, Salvation Army, Half Price Books and JC Penney. I did feel very grateful to be able to do the shopping on my own with no children in tow! On the way home I picked up a friend to spend the night with my boys and we stopped for one last errand at the library.

A cup of tea and a sit-down was in order and I pulled out a book that had nothing to do with my class or Christmas and thought I'd steal 30 minutes of rest before getting dinner. But sitting in the living room drew Rachel out of the office for a chat (which is rarer than having a rest) and then Michael even came and sat down (also rare) so I had my tea and had a few chats and was very grateful for a rice cooker and some leftover soup.

It was C. S. Lewis tonight for class prep and now I think maybe I should try again for that rest......

December 19

I only took one picture today (this one) but I should have taken a picture of the bags and bags of groceries sprawled helter-skelter on my kitchen floor. That would have summed up the day much better.

I started the shopping at the local international grocery store where the smells combined with Bing Crosby singing transported me right back to Christmas in Uganda. I filled my cart with gluten free flours, a few bags of tea for my class, and two packages of sugar-coated fennel (also for said class). Aldi, Meijer, and Kroger followed.

The kids unloaded the car while I popped some meat in the crockpot and got the turkey carcass into a pot to bubble away all afternoon. The Dollar Store was next on my agenda. Last year I promised myself I would take care of the stocking stuffers in one fell swoop at the dollar store. So that is what I did. A few more errands and it was time to pick up Rachel and Andrew from their volunteer work at school.

I took a few minutes to squeak out a little illustration of a Victoria sponge cake since I need to be in practice for my class which begins two weeks from today. Back in the kitchen I finished up meal prep and popped some food in the car to take to a family with a new baby. It's always fun to visit new babies and hold them! After a nice visit I headed home to finish up some baking and get back into the life of L. M. Montgomery so I could finish her lesson plan. And now to bed!

December 18

A week until Christmas! Hard to believe, although part of me will be glad to have the Christmas deadline over with and get back to regular life.

This was our first weekday of the school holidays! Yay! The big kids slept in, of course, while I got up as soon as I could manage and got a batch of cookies going and a few other every morning routines like yoga and my quiet time. By the time the kids were up, fed, and "family worshipped" it was 10:30 -- not my idea of an early start on the morning.

Our plan was to sew together the History of Christmas quilts we've been making in school the last three weeks. We got David's top put together and Laura's started. Then some friends arrived and I paused the quilts to stitch a bunch of Boy Scout badges onto a shirt for a friend.

After lunch I headed to the post office where everyone else in town had also congregated. Fortunately the line for the automated machine was only 5 deep rather than 15. Back at home I hit the books again, working on my L. M. Montgomery lesson plan.

I cooked a turkey yesterday so we could have leftovers for a few days and it was "heat up your own dinner" night since James and I took off to get a few things at Joann Fabrics before rendezvousing with the entire family to see the new Star Wars film. Everyone else is much more into it than I am but it is fun to go as a family and I enjoyed hearing a group of men in their 40's audibly respond to the movie as it went along. Hilarious!

Time to get some rest and maybe a few minutes to read.....

(For those interested, here is the key to the Christmas quilt: 1) Jesus' birth; 2) Rome's Saturnalia celebrations which occurred around the winter solstice; 3) Boniface, Apostle to Germany and the legend of the oak of Thor; 4) Christmas in medieval England with yule logs, mince pies, and holly; 5) St. Francis introduces live nativities; 6) Martin Luther relishes Christmas, preaches many Christmas sermons and writes Christmas carols; 7) the puritans react to the drunken revelry and ban Christmas in the UK and other countries; 8) Christmas in colonial America; 9) Christmas in Victorian England; 10) Christmas in America in the 1800's; 11) the history and legends of Santa Claus; 12) Christmas today in our family)

December 17

It was nice to have a break from the checklist taskmaster today. We had friends for lunch so I did get up to prep a few things before heading to church. Michael was back in the pulpit after being gone last week. He's preaching through Acts in the morning and Deuteronomy in the evening. We started a new  adult Sunday school class on basic doctrines which looks like it will be good.

My mom stuck a turkey in the oven when she arrived and by the time we got home from church it was nicely cooked as well as the mashed potatoes, roasted squash, carrots and green beans. (Thanks mom!!!) Every occasion feels more festive with the lights of the dining room tree twinkling, the red candles glowing on the table and lots of red and green around.

For dessert I made this roasted fruit recipe except that I used a small amount of maple syrup instead of the sugar and I added cloves, allspice, and ginger. I served this with ice-cream and pieces of shortbread. Oh the fruit tasted scrumptious, just like spiced cider.

After our friends left I helped Laura finish some of her embroidered squares for our school quilt project and then it was time for Laura's Sunday tea party and some reading aloud with the kids.

Back to church in the evening and afterward there is always a lot of visiting with people and catching up on each other's lives.

I put out cheeses and crackers for the evening family pow-wow and we all sat around chatting and badgering one member to get off their phone before we called it a night and headed to bed.

December 16

I fooled myself into getting up at 7 by promising myself that meant I could go to bed early tonight and read (not sure I'll be managing to keep that promise.... but at least I got up on time).

We had our annual Christmas piano recital today. I think David and Laura are actually the only "piano" students -- all the other students are violin or viola students. The Christmas recital means there are some Christmas songs thrown into the mix of the repertoire and with all the church decorations and tasty treats afterward it has a very festive feel.

But before the recital at one there were cookies to bake (for said recital), the week ahead to plan, more amazon orders to make, and next year's nature journaling classes to advertise.

After the recital I did a bit of errand-running and then headed back to my desk to punch out a lesson plan on Laura Ingalls Wilder for my upcoming class. Michael went out the door to do something fun with Andrew only to find the area of town they were headed overtaken by a bunch of crazy people in Santa suits. Ha ha! I made some soup with greens and beef and rice noodles in it for dinner and then started in on tidying up what the children hadn't already done. I need to catch up on the finances and do a little prep for tomorrow's Sunday lunch and then maybe I'll get that book time in!

December 15

"For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” 

has shone in our hearts 

to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God 

in the face of Jesus Christ."

 II Corinthians 4:6

This is the Scripture text from the funeral Michael and I attended this afternoon for the dear two year old son of friends of ours. As I watched this family say goodbye to their beloved son and walk together one last time down the aisle of the church, the five siblings crowded around their parents, I couldn't help but think of Tiny Tim. Perhaps my thoughts have been too full of Dickens, and A Christmas Carol, and The Man Who Invented Christmas. My heart, and every heart there, protested: Tiny Tim is not supposed to die. That's not how the story goes. But the fact of the matter is sometimes the Tiny Tims do die. And it takes an Author with infinitely more skill than Dickens to write a story in which Tiny Tim dying can actually, in eternity, be a better story than if he did not. 

My thoughts also turned to another mother in history who had to watch the death of her son: Mary and the prophecy spoken over her at the presentation of Christ in the temple in Jerusalem. Simeon foretold that a "sword would pierce through her own soul as well." That sword pierced her soul when she had to live through the unnatural experience of watching her child die. 

We might think this all very depressing at Christmas-time but you know, it forces us to think about what the coming of Christ really means and the hope that it truly provides. The whole reason Christ came and dwelled among us was to provide reconciliation with God Almighty so that physical death might not be the end for us but only the beginning of life eternal. This eternal hope has been so evident in the lives of baby Jonathan's parents over the last several years and their witness of devotion to an ailing child, of trust in Christ, of faith in God's all-powerful and at the same time all-loving care. Truly the light of Christ is shining in this situation.

It seems trite to speak of the other things we did today but outside of the holy interlude of the time set aside to honor Jonathan it was a full day. The kids and I finished our History of Christmas studies by talking about Christmas in 2017 and making a list of all the things that are a part of our family Christmas traditions. We turned this list into a poster and also read Lucy and Tom's Christmas. Andrew had a dentist appointment downtown so I left mid-morning to collect him and drive downtown where I spent an hour happily reading while Andrew had his teeth tugged on. We dashed to Wildwood for a quick lunch with Grandma and Cousin Olivia as well as a sweep through Mission 27 thrift store looking for Christmas presents and props for my upcoming class. We headed home in time to get to the funeral and once back from that heated up leftover soup for dinner. I met my mom and sisters at the Indianapolis Museum of Art for a little sister birthday celebration and a tour of the Winter Lights. We all enjoyed the beautiful artistry, especially the painstakingly outlined large trees with 50,000 lights each. And now it's time for a little reading and gearing up for the weekend.

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December 14

It was a very cold day. Cold not just because the outside temps were in the 20's but cold because our furnace decided to stop heating the house.

We did have a lovely, uninterrupted morning of school aided by hot tea. Today we studied the history of Santa Claus over the last 1700 years. It's quite an interesting development filled with lots of legends, true stories, and cultural adaptations. We read The Story of Santa Claus which was just the right length and depth for our study. I had hoped to read The Autobiography of Santa Claus but I think we'll save that for another year. And we also read Silent Night by Will Moses which was a lovely Christmas story set in historic Vermont. Chocolate chip cookies and carrots seemed to be the authentic treat to serve.

After school we met up with some friends at the local theatre to see The Man Who Invented Christmas -- the story of how Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol. The movie fit so perfectly with our Christmas school theme this month that I had to take the three younger kids. We all enjoyed it and the first thing I noticed was how warm the theatre was after our cold house! I nearly fell asleep.

I took some time to get organized for Christmas when we returned home -- lists, lists, and more lists. But I do feel a lot better now, knowing what needs to be done, bought, cooked, and given.

By the time supper rolled around my hands were nearly stiff and I was pretty much done surviving the cold. I turned supper plans into soup and the heating man showed up at the door. Within the hour the heat was back on and we were beginning to thaw. Very thankful for this.

Andrew went off to his high school Bible study Christmas party with a gag gift and Rachel settled in to study for finals. The kids and I watched Miracle on 34th Street while I finished up the Christmas cards and did some sewing. And now it's time for bed!

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December 13

It was an unfortunate but necessary requirement that I sleep in this morning after my adventures yesterday. The gain in positive health benefits may have been lost in the stress caused by not really catching up with my day.

We did manage to sit down for school and learn about Christmas in 19th century America -- both in pioneer settings and in New York City. Oranges, peppermint sticks, and little candies played a large part in 19th century children's Christmases.

We left at noon for the library and made our way afterward to Writing Class and the biannual Author's Tea -- each student took a turn reading one of their pieces of writing while the rest of us ate snacks and drank tea. The Tea always ends with a hilarious mad libs rendition.

I left James for his science class and the younger kids and I went to drop something off at a friend's house and stayed long enough for a cup of tea and a good "catch-up." Braving the windy cold, we drove straight to Aldi followed by Meijer to get the week's groceries. We pulled in the driveway close to 5 p.m. and the kids started the job of unloading the car. The most tedious part of food shopping is putting all the food away at home when you thought you'd finished all the work. Groceries away, dessert made, dinner on the table and then we were out the door to the dessert get-together for our Small Group Bible Study.

And now it's time to sit down and figure out just what to get the kids for Christmas. It's a little late (both on the clock and on the calendar) but we better get this settled soon so we'll have something here in time for Christmas!