Learning opportunities & blessings this holiday season

Praise! This year, for Christmas I thought it would be much harder than it really was. I was actually dreading this season because friends and family are what seem to give more of a distinct meaning to these special dates that lie on the calendar. These ‘stationary figures’ trigger our desires to celebrate in certain ways that are familiar and become family traditions. Although we know somewhere in the back of our minds that these figures have nothing to do with the real meaning of Jesus’s birth, rarely do we have the opportunity to ‘prove’ that we understand it. Since I knew that these stationary figures in my life were no longer there to keep the ‘spirit of the Holiday’ the same as usual, this was hard to accept. This meant that my comfortable, stationary role, all planned out within this holiday chaos was about to become an unknown without any kind of familiarity. GREAT, many of you know how much I love to embrace change! UGH! This is probably why I get so many opportunities for a ‘do-over’? Try once AGAIN to embrace some sort of change, with a heart that is no longer bent on what I am used to. Re-occurring theme in my life! Instead of dread, I had to ask the Lord to change my focus so that I could embrace change with the attitude that these are new opportunities and exciting things that God wants for me and my family.
I guess you could say this year was different in the fact that I realized something pretty simple, but imperative. We had the opportunity to change head knowledge into heart application, due to our circumstances. Sometimes, due to all the hub-bub of familiarities and chaos during Christmas, the simplicity of gratefulness and celebration of our saviors birth can easily be lost. The obligations of family pictures, gatherings of friends and family, school plays, work parties, ect. can take the simplicity of the celebration and turn it into an overblown production of obligations. All Jesus cares about is the simplicity of a relationship with Him and remembering to celebration the gift of His son to us. With or without familiarities, Jesus’s birth is still the real meaning behind this date! Christmas is not about traditions or everybody in the family being present and accounted for, but a deeper reverence for what the Lord has done for us and our desire to grow closer to Him everyday. In being so out of my element this year, I also realized that I had to ask the Lord to make me “feel like” celebrating Christmas because there was such a huge temptation to let the Grinch take over! Since I wasn’t able to cling to traditions and familiarities, I instead had the opportunity to cling to the Lord instead. Can we all say DUH? As usual, God is faithful to meet us where we are at and then bless our socks off when we stop concentrating on what we do not have and shift our focus on the true blessing of having Him in our lives.

The weekend before Christmas, John took some time off & Sarah offered to babysit the kiddos while we did our Christmas shopping. SO the kids had a fun day of playing with their big sister and we got all of the items on our shopping list taken care of.
Christmas day, John was working, but we were invited over to Chris & Donna’s house (pastor and his wife) for Christmas dinner. John did join us once he got off. We all had a nice time of fellowship, spending the day with friends and eating Christmas dinner with our church family. Unfortunately, due to our fun time of spending Christmas away from home, we missed out on family phone calls but because of the time difference we still got the opportunity to chat a small amount.
On the 26th, the kids woke us up at around 7am to celebrate Christmas. Tons of fun and grateful kiddos were so excited to see what was hiding under that tree. After inspecting their new toys and fun stuff we hooked up the newest family toy. The Wii. There were quite a few hours of play before getting ready for the family function later that afternoon. We were ever so fortunate to be invited to a holiday dinner at Sarah & Matt’s house in Naples. I guess it is a family tradition that both sides of their family’s come together for a combined dinner the day after Christmas at their home. We were privileged to get to be apart of this gathering and meet all the members of their families. (On Matt’s side: his parents, grandma, sister & friend of the family Lisa were there and on Sarah’s side: her parents, Aunt Julie and brother Jared were there). We were a bit nervous about being ‘the odd man out’ in the mix of both families; however, we were made to feel very welcomed and were warmly received by all. Even though our kids were the only ones there, they also seemed to have a lot of fun chatting with all the adults and pretty much talking everyone’s ears off who would listen. The kids were also terribly spoiled rotten by their sister & her parents. I was shocked that Sarah’s parents seemed pretty excited at the chance to Christmas shop for our kids and see their eyes light as they played with their new & unexpected gifts. After I got Ben’s Batman toys out of their package, John & Sarah’s brother, Jared couldn’t get outside fast enough to play with Ben and show him how his new toys worked. It was quite funny watching those big boys play with the toys and revert back to childhood! It was quite nice to feel as if God had taken the huge gap that was filled by our family & friends from back home and replaced it with HIS designed plan for us. God is very good! There were also a lot of pictures taken at Sarah’s, so once I get some sent to me I will post them for you all to see! Hope you all had a nice Christmas full of blessings and family memories!