Christmas Time 2019

 Aaaahhhh!!  WHY did I wait 10 months to write about Christmas?!  This will be a hard one to remember!

Pre-Christmas:

I had been eyeing the "25 Days of Christ" ornaments (from New Tradition Crafts) for quite a while, and was able to purchase them during a sale.  For those 25 days leading up to Christmas we would open one ornament a day and read accompanying scriptures/stories that coordinated with the ornament.  (We purchased the illustrated Good Shepherd book from the site.)

Another treasured part of the Christmas season for me is reading children's Christmas books to the kids.  A wonderful one that we read for the first time this year was The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey  by Susan Wojciechowski.  

Since we had been studying the New Testament in church it was a good review of what they had already learned.  I loved the physical representation for each scriptural account.  I remember when we had the missionaries for dinner and Clara excitedly showed her ornament after ornament and could recite the scripture story for each one.  I love that Christ was our focus and they were learning about Him.

We made it to Christmas at the Zoo!  We actually went on a night where it was pretty cold and the wind was CRAZY!  We were about the only ones there!  But the lights were beautiful and we managed to have a good time despite the cold!

These funny kids had the best time chasing these moving snowflake lights on the ground!  They kept at it FOREVER!  

We also enjoyed Jolly Days at the Children's Museum:

Christmas Day 2019:

We spent our first Christmas Eve with just the five of us.  (Normally we are at my parent's, but this year we were heading there for a long week reunion AFTER Christmas.  I wanted to make it special and I loved the idea to make a Christmas Eve dinner a "night in Bethlehem," with simple foods the shepherds may have eaten.  It was a great success!  We turned all the lights off except for the Christmas tree's.  After dinner we sang some Christmas carols and again shared about the Nativity story from Luke 2.

For the meal we had fish, rolls, oranges, crackers with hummus, dates, nuts, a couple of different kinds of cheese, and grape juice.  (The blankets were our field.)

It was all happy shrieks and cheers on Christmas morning!

Ezra and Clara received a combined Paw Patrol station. All the kids happily played with it!

Eli was ecstatic to receive four laser guns!

I made this for breakfast on Christmas morning.  It was a yummy and simple Christmas tree danish using crescent roll dough, homemade icing and cherry pie filling.

Stockings with G & G Metheny--

Christmas gathering with the Hayes side.  I don't know why David didn't take more photos there!  (We're pictured with Tom, David's brother.)  We all gathered at David and Carol's for a good meal and gift exchanging.

Thankful for another blessed and happy Christmas!