Getting ready!

Tomorrow is Christmas!  And soon our kids and grandkids will be coming!  I have gotten the house ready!  The tree is up and presents wrapped.

I added a new "addition" to our grandkids' ornaments.

Lots of people do a fancy tree, but mine is filled with sentimental ornaments.

Some are from Japan where I grew up

I have snowmen from the each of the states our kids live in;

and an ornament I cross-stitched for my mother

These animals have stories behind them

I have several from friends

and from my Aunt Millie

There are several birds, because I love birds!

Some are from our family trips to the beach

and travels overseas

This represents our firstborn's first Christmas gift

And this year's ornament

"The stockings were hung by the chimney with care..."

and on the stairsteps too.  

The mantel is not big enough for all the stockings!

The house is decorated...

  Do you know the true story behind Santa?  Nicholas of Myra (Saint Nick) lived in the time of Diocletian's heaviest persecution of Christians - a time when the executioners were so tired from killing Christians that they had to take turns in their work.  Nicholas was branded with hot irons when he would not deny Christ, and then had his skin pinched with pliers.  

  After persecution ended, he spent the later part of his days founding orphanages and helping poor children.  Today we hear very little of his suffering for Christ.  It is more glamorous but less glorious to make Nicholas the prisoner only into a Santa Claus.  He went to be with the Lord in 343 AD. - Voice of the Martyrs

My mother's creche

And this one was from my childhood.

One of the ears of the horse is broken off.

The table has been extended to seat all of us.  Next year we will have to add a highchair!

I love all the cards we receive each year from around the world!

Beds and pallets have been made.

(next year we'll need a pak and play!  Our crib was broken and had to be tossed)

Merry Christmas from our home to yours!!  Perhaps yours will be noisy and chaotic, or it might be quiet.  Maybe lonely.  Remember though, you are never alone!  You needn't be.  Christ has come.  Emmanuel - Christ WITH us!

In His hands

 "In His hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind."                                                                                                           Job 12:10

We said our goodbyes to Staci and Eli.  Emeri was still asleep.  We knew she proably would be so had said our goodbyes the night before.  Staci and the children haven't started attending church since they reopened. 

We went to the early service of New Heights Church.  They were testing some new equipment.  Josh was working on it.

You give life, You are love

You bring light to the darkness

You give hope, You restore

Every heart that is broken

Great are You, Lord!

It's Your breath in our lungs 

so we pour out our praise, we pour out our praise

It's Your breath in our lungs 

so we pour out our praise to You only!

After the service, we gave our son hugs and headed back to Kansas.  We took another route - south!  The opposite direction from Kansas, but a friend of Staci's had told her how beautiful the trees were on 49.  

The trees had probably peaked a day or two earlier, but they were still pretty.  It is a nice drive!  Maybe too nice.  I looked at Al and he was beginning to nod.  I touched his shoulder "Are you sleepy?  I can drive."  He said he was ok.

As we continued on, all of a sudden in front of us was a large metal container of some kind right in the middle of the highway!  We couldn't get over since a semi was in the other lane.  Al swerved to miss it.  Oh my goodness!  It could have spelled tragedy!  Or eternity!

At 40 we went west to the Muskogee Turnpike where we headed north towards Tulsa.

We've been through Tulsa many times but never the way we went, taking the Broken Arrow Expressway to 75 and heading north.  

It was a new view for us of this city and up to 166 in Kansas.

We drove close to Sedan, Ks.  We need to stop sometime!  They have the world's longest yellow brick road that circles the entire downtown area.  

Liberal, Ks is the town that claims to be Dorothy's hometown (from Wizard of Oz) however.  

In actuality, Dorothy Gale is simply from Kansas, no town given.  It was filmed entirely in Los Angeles at MGM's Culver City studio.  The first time I ever heard of The Wizard of Oz was when I was 20 and they showed it at the University of Kansas.  I did not know about this story having grown up overseas.

I wonder what this building is? or was?

In the heat of the political battle.  

It was a dark, cloudy, rainy day.  It was beginning to lull Al back to sleep again!  But luckily a nudge woke him up.  I offered to drive again, but he said he was awake now.  God had His hand on us as He always does!

Guess they didn't want to make the road through this grove of trees for some reason.  We went through several small towns - Dexter, Burden, Floral.  Never been here before.

We passed several cotton groves.  More and more cotton is being grown in Kansas.

We got home in time to run to church for a dear friend's viewing.  Allen had to work the next day and would not be able to attend Willard's funeral.  Before Covid, we would help at the nursing home and help wheel him and others to chapel for Sunday night singing.  We never knew that last February was the last time we would be able to see him. 

God holds our lives in His hands.  Today, tomorrow, we never know when we will see Him face-to-face.  This morning in my personal devotions I was thinking of this.  Won't that be such a day when we can look into Jesus' face and He into ours?