it's beginning to look a lot like...

SPRING!!!

wait, i mean christmas. except that it's raining and 45+ degrees outside. (funny how we get excited about 40 degrees in michigan...) i think a couple of my perennials may even be starting to poke their little heads out of the ground and are probably really confused. i'm a little sad that it doesn't feel more like a good ole michigan white christmas, but i guess there's still hope for a little snow tomorrow. at least this weather makes travelling to the in-laws a little easier, and it's better than the hot and humid 95 degree christmases we twice endured in australia!

because it bears repeating...

maybe it's because our budget is tight. maybe it's because our house is small. maybe it's because we've seen what having lots of stuff and getting lots more stuff can do in our kid's hearts (not to mention our own). or, maybe it's because we think our friends brian and amy are really cool and we want to do whatever they do. whatever the case, we've really been re-thinking Christmas this year and how we desire to go forward from this point as a family in the ways we celebrate it.

there have been several times throughout this Christmas season that i have been struck by just how rich we really are, and by how silly it really is that Christmastime has become in many ways the time in which we think about and hope to get even MORE. if i'm honest with myself, i know how easy it is to be consumed by thoughts of my (and the kids') wishlist this time of year. and just why do i think we need more stuff when i'm already daily stepping over more toys and books that we know what to do with?? i finally am understanding why my brother-in-laws keep asking for goats and chickens (for third world country families/communities) for Christmas instead of gifts for themselves. :)

last night drove it home once more -- i was at a homeschool meeting, and at the end one of the women shared a video she had created after a trip to africa. she had visited a community of women there, mostly widows and single mothers, who had hopes of raising enough money through the selling of their handicrafts to be able to afford some beans and spices to go with their rice for Christmas dinner. BEANS and SPICES. Dave Ramsey, our "getting out of debt" coach (see my sidebar link), always advises people to live on "beans and rice" while getting out of debt, and obviously he is referring to a very meager lifestyle. yet beans are what these women hope for for their special dinner. we are SO rich, even when we think we are poor.

there are other reasons besides this that motivate our desire to be more clear about our intentions when it comes to celebrating Christmas, but this is the one that sticks out to me at the moment. a few small things that we have tried to change this year are: doing a Jesse Tree instead of a Christmas tree (see previous post), being involved in less gift exchanges, purchasing and delivering gifts to a needy family (with my entire family), being less busy (that's a tough one this time of year!), and doing less shopping!

jesse tree

last year as i began looking into doing some kind of advent calendar with the kids in preparation for Christmas, i realized that many of them are mostly about Santa and candy. i also began to realize that in its familiarity, the nativity was cute but not all that exciting or meaningful to me. i desired to see afresh why that baby in the manger was such a big deal.

somewhere in the course of all of this, i believe it was Sara H. who first introduced me to the Jesse Tree, which was exactly what i had been looking for! we will be trying it, in a very simplified form, for the first time this year. what excites me about it is that it weaves Bible stories together into the "big picture" story of the Bible which from the beginning points to our need for a Savior... and leads up to, then, why Jesus' birth WAS such a big deal. each day we will focus on a different part of the story and add a symbol to our Jesse Tree to represent each new aspect of the story leading up to His birth.

from what i have gathered thus far, the idea was inspired by this stained glass window at the Chartres Cathedral in France, which so intricately pictures the story of Jesus as it unfolds from the root of Jesse (father of King David). i am almost ashamed to admit, next to this masterpiece, that our Jesse Tree takes the form of a green felt-covered piece of cardboard this year! :)

working myself out of a job

we had just returned home from sawyer's doctor appointment this afternoon and i still had to feed him his lunch. i asked miriam if she would "read" levi a story and put him down for his nap. i figured, no harm done if it doesn't work. about 20-30 minutes later as i was finishing feeding sawyer, i realized it had been unusally quiet upstairs (which, as a parent, you never know if that's a good thing or a bad thing) and went up to check on them. two of miriam's Bob Books sat neatly at the top of the stairs and the kids were both in their beds--asleep. i knew they were both tired, but i didn't expect that!

what is REAL?

the following discourse between the Rabbit and the Skin Horse warmed my heart today as i read to miriam from The Velveteen Rabbit--especially the last part:

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

winter is officially here!