More Christmas pics

Christmas 2008

Our Christmas celebration has been lovely. I haven't seen our children so excited for Christmas to come as they were this year. I'm not quite sure why. I know that I had a hard time getting myself in the right spirit for the season. We only baked 1 kind of cookie this year and didn't get to many of our regular traditions. I was feeling like I hadn't done a very good job giving them a nice Christmas. That didn't matter to them, I guess. They were happy with the tree, gingerbread cookies to decorate, gifts under the tree and time together. I'm pretty happy with that too. (And I'll keep it in mind for next year. ;)

We attended church on Christmas Eve with David's parents, Ron and Renee and his sister, Manon. After church, we went to Ron and Renee's for dinner and to open gifts. It was a nice evening together, though we did get home pretty late. I was thankful some of the children had taken naps that day!

Christmas morning is always very special to us. Once everyone is awake, we all hunt for Baby Jesus to put in the creche. This is an "accidental" tradition that started when Elizabeth was very young. (Baby Jesus really was lost and needed to be found before we could open gifts.) Now someone hides him for the rest of the family to find. (except this year...he really was lost again. )

Once the hunt is finished and breakfast and coffee are rollin' the gift opening fun begins! I love to watch everyone open their gifts. After searching and stashing the entire year, it's so rewarding to see their faces light up. I'm also thankful that they are still delighted with simple gifts like a bundle of books and photo collages of them with their siblings. This was Verity-Grace's first Christmas and she enjoyed every bit of the festivities.

The rest of the day we spent relaxing, eating and enjoying our new treasures. It's easy to say that Christmas Day is our favorite day of the year. Simple, quiet and filled with precious memories. I am thankful for such a special time to focus our hearts on each other and on Jesus. Keeping Him foremost every day is what we strive for. Enjoying Him today while the world joins us is truly a gift.

The Deep Freeze

Joshua - age 9

Yes, we enjoyed yet another grand adventure in the history of our frozen state. The largest power outage in NH history found us in the dark for 4 days. We were thankful for the woodstove David put in this fall. It kept us and our pipes nice and warm while the world outside looked like it was encased in glass.

Elizabeth was delighted to be forced back to the pioneer days. She had buckets lined up all around the house collecting water as the ice melted and then warming it on the stove for washing and such. All the children loved living by candlelight. Ruth was praying the "'letricitee" would never come back because she loves "sleeping by candles." ;)

Monday night we got our power back on and started the all week marathon of laundry. It takes a while to catch up. I think we also turned on every light in the house that first night...just 'cause we could. :)

Somehow we didn't loose power on the next big storm. But oh, what a lot of snow we have now!! Since winter just officially began a day ago, I'm confident we haven't seen the last of power outages and snow days for a long while.