Stockings

 It is so sweet to have a tea party with my granddaughter and daughter!

Shortly after we had our tea party, our son and his family arrived, bearing gifts and luggage!

We chatted awhile, then excused ourselves for just a bit to attend a wedding reception at church for a young friend, Drew and his new bride.

I used to be his Sunday School teacher years ago! And he helped me with        DVBS (daily vacation Bible school) when he was older.

After a good visit and before going home, Al put on his Santa suit.  Every year, Santa shows up at the house to pass out stockings.  We decided Al would dress into the suit here and we'd go home and surprise the family.

Did anyone happen to see Santa driving I wonder?

When we got home, instead of surprising the family, they surprised Santa!  Someone must have snitched about our plan!

Santa went in and with some help, handed out all the Christmas stockings.

That was fun!  Do you know the real story of Santa?  Voice of the Martyrs had an article about him.  You can read it here.  "Santa" loved the Lord Jesus!  He would not be silenced about Him.

We always love filling stockings.  People have asked "What do you put in them?"  Here are some things we have done in the past years (each year they are different, except that we always put in a pair of socks and a chocolate Santa.):

Scissors, nail file, sharpie pens, nice flair or ink pen, colored pencils or crayons, teas, post-it notes, binder clips, cherry mash, highlighters, bandages, flyswatters, furikake (Japanese sprinkles to go on rice), book markers, candies, Kind bars, lip gloss, chapstick, slinky, bath toys, gum, hair ties, barretts, toothbrush, fast food gift card, nail polish, bath bombs, espresso beans, egg slicer, orange peeler, nuts, paper clips, shoe horn, jewelry, stationery, pocket knife.

The gender reveal game

 Jill's family arrived late in the evening after driving all day long. 

They quickly raided the snacks and the 'fridge!

The next morning, we zoomed Josh's family in Arkansas so they could play the gender reveal game with us!

This is the game board that Mindy made.

Each kid took a turn popping either a balloon for a girl or a boy.

We were really hoping that the confetti wouldn't fly out on the very first balloon pick in order that each kid would get a try.  

Eli and Emeri were both asked to pick out balloons and Jason popped it for them.

Most of us were pre-guessing this baby would be a boy.

Eli is the only boy and there are 4 granddaughters, so we thought that would be good!

Would you believe we got to the last 2 balloons?!  Amazing that it wasn't 2 pink squares or 2 blue squares left but one of each!

It was decided that Hannah and Sophia would pop these at the same time.

A girl!!

Eli thought it would be ok to be the only boy.  Makes him special.

The grandkids had exchanged names for Christmas.  Mindy and Jason were getting ready to leave, so Hannah gave her gift for Baby Girl P., a sweet stuffed hedgehog and some onesies.

Kobi had to check them out!

Baby Girl P. had Claire's name, so Claire opened up her gift.

Jason captured her expression of joy!

We had to take our family photo in 2 different shifts this year.  After the Colorado kids left, the Arkansas kids would come and we'd take another photo.

Covid has pirated our get together this year!

Arg!

Good-bye to our Colorado kids!

Next time we see them, Mindy will have a little bump!!

Silent Night

When my husband hears the song "Silent Night" he almost always says "It was not a silent night."  If you think about all the throng who were in Bethlehem for the census and tax, there was probably lots of clamouring!  I can imagine all the Jewish people in the homes complaining and yammering to one another about those awful Romans and their heavy handed taxes and rule.  I think of how it is when our family talks about politics!

The night Jesus was born, I'm sure Mary would have cried or even screamed during her labor.  It would not have been silent.

******

My home is now silent.  The children and grandchildren have gone home.  I have put Christmas decorations away.   Al is back to work.

When the kids were here, it was not quiet!  It was a joyous noisy.

Mindy and Jason were the first to arrive, coming Christmas day in the afternoon.  We got the news that our daughter-in-law had been exposed to Covid-19.  Jason and Mindy didn't want to chance getting exposed so the hard decision was made that they would leave early, and the Arkansas kids would wait a extra day to come.  Since Jill's and us have had it, we weren't worried.

So we had a quiet Christmas time together, just the 4 of us.  Or, I should say, the 5 of us!  Mindy had a new picture of our grandchild.

I had a stocking for the new baby. 

We watched "Babies".  It was delightful to watch about how babies are raised in 4 different cultures.

I told them the story of the real St. Nick, who was outspoken (not silent) of his love for Christ and was tortured for that.  He was jailed, branded with hot irons and his skin pinched with pliers.  After the persecution ended, he founded orphanages and helped the poor.  For some people, Christmas is all about the jolly fat man, Santa Claus, but the real St. Nick would have been all about pointing people to Jesus Christ.

The next day was a quiet day.  Mindy worked on putting together a gender reveal board.  We did some reading.  In the evening, we went for a walk in North Newton.

Someone had some fun with these hedgeballs!  One of my grandkids used to call them hedgehogs.

Evidently, they are supposed to keep spiders and other bugs at bay.  If you place hedgeballs around the foundation of your home, or in your basement, they say critters are repelled by these.  Although this belief is widespread, some scientists debunk this notion.  I read that the wood from the osage-orange tree is the best for making archery bows!  You can also extract bright yellow dye from the wood.