Mini-celebrations
We are enjoying this time leading up to Christmas- we are doing lots of mini-activities which is making the time enjoyable rather than stressful...although we have our big team/Thai friends Christmas on Saturday (please pray that the Thai and Chinese friends who are attending are touched by the love of Jesus during the celebration and understand something new about him). Here are a few of our mini-activities:
1) We did our monthly trip the library across town, ate shwarmas in a Muslim neighborhood, and then attended a Handel's Messiah performance at a downtown church (Colleen came with us). Silas enjoyed directing the choir with his lollipop. All the kids liked the performance but got too restless to stick out all three hours! :)
2) After school on Thursday, Tom took the girls Christmas shopping and to see The Chronicles of Narnia movie, Voyage of the Dawn Treader which they were so excited about and loved so much.
3) Made an advent paper chain which we use to count down the days to Christmas and advent devotions by the tree each night.
4) And we made Christmas sugar cookie-cutouts. Again, we included an elephant for a little Thai flair. :) I used this recipe for the first time and loved it (doubled the vanilla and used powdered sugar instead of flour for rolling them out).
Claire was my trooper in this project- sticking with it and doing lots of cut-outs and painting on icing.
Had some hot chocolate by the tree...
And read this book, that I remember reading as a kid..."Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree"
Do any of my sibs remember reading this one? Mr. Willowby's grand tree is too tall so he chops off the top and gives it to his maid but it's too tall for her house so she chops off the top and it keeps getting chopped until the very tip top is in a mouse's house. Remember this? (I just rediscovered it this year).
Last night, Tom read The Bear's Christmas to the girls. We are having fun introducing the girls to some of our favorites as kids.
-C