Merry Christmas!!

All was going well, one year, when two siblings decided to depict the manger scene and dress up as Mary and Jo. They thought all was in fun until........

...........well, until King Herod showed up. That is when things got a little unsettling. All I can recall is that it became a battle between King Herod's sword and Joseph's staff, and I held on to that doll as tightly as I could.

For some reason the above picture always makes me chuckle. Glad to see we were in the Christmas spirit that year. It warms my heart to remember back to Christmases long ago. I am thankful for where we have come since that point but also thankful for such great childhood memories.

Last year, at this time, I was still contemplating my answer to a proposal from a certain somebody (aka: Nate). Needless to say, it was not one of my most enjoyable Christmases, but I tried to make the most of it, knowing that my life might soon be changing.

We are really enjoying our first Christmas together, and neither of us would choose to go back a year in time. We thank God for how He showed himself faithful back then and continues too in our lives. What a blessing to celebrate our Saviour's birth together as a couple.

I'll post more about Christmas at a later time, but for now I plan to go spend some quality time with the best earthly Christmas present I ever received. MY HUSBAND. Five days after Christmas, last year, I said "YES" to a most amazing man. I am so thankful that we said "YES" to the little baby in the manger, who gave His life for us. Only through Him could we have the joys of celebrating our first Christmas together, and hopefully many more to come.

Wishing all of you a blessed Christmas, and to all a good night!

The Older Teaching the Younger

I have never heard so many ladies discuss their family connections and genealogy. Nope, not until yesterday that is. Yesterday, a few of us girls had the opportunity to host a Christmas tea party for some of the widow ladies from our church. Us girls may have enjoyed ourselves even more than the widows. 

We were privileged to have thirteen ladies attend our party, and they were all encouraged to wear a festive Christmas hat. 

We got quite the assortment of hats, not to mention, an assortment of personalities as well.

Some wore hats that they had made many years ago. This particular hat had each small feather glued on, by hand, back in 1949.

 Some added a bow to make their hat show a little extra Christmas cheer. 

Here, we have some berries and a bird added onto the side. As you can see, they got very creative.

This hat gave me a chuckle. Irma added a blinking snowman, which made her hat very eye-catching.

We served the ladies a nice meal, along with tea of course. We even had a singing tea pot. Who even knew those existed? Not me, I must admit.

  

Even after a nice-sized meal, they still had room for dessert. I wasn't sure if cheesecake would go over very well with this age-group of ladies (I figured they might have preferred pie), but most of them ate every bite. 

After the meal, we had a Christmas gift grab for the ladies. Each of us girls brought a couple gifts and let them go at it.

This was the most fought-over gift. A toilet paper snowman and a paper towel present-looking type thing. Who would have guessed? The ladies all thought it was adorable. Creativity credits go to Janet Sinn for her efforts in coming up with the idea.

All in all, the ladies seemed to have a great time, and us girls thoroughly enjoyed serving them.

Not recently have I thanked God for my heritage and for the examples I have to follow after. These ladies all reminded me that God remains faithful throughout the various stages of life. They may have different struggles than myself, but we all know that the love of God is what truly binds our hearts and souls together. I also marvel at how these ladies stick together, not only as friends but also as sisters in Christ. They are such an inspiration to us younger girls. What a true testimony of Titus 2, the older teaching the younger. They taught me more than they'll ever know.