Merry Christmas!

It truly is the most wonderful time of the year -the decorations, the presents, the food, the time with family and friends, singing Christmas carols together.  Above all else - celebrating the birth of Jesus - a humble birth for the King of all Kings.  Our perfect example in life and love.  Laying down His life  so that He could rescue us from our sins if we repent and believe. Ready to join in to "Go, tell it on the Mountain...over the hills and EVERYWHERE!"?  :)

Which leads this to being a bit of a different Christmas for us.  Amidst the normal wonders and stresses of this season we have added a move to the end of it. As we continue to prep for our move - I have missed all the baking I usually do, my next door neighbors amazing light show to music, our church family and celebrating on Christmas Eve together.  I miss family that normally we'd see again shortly, but this time years will separate our reunions.  

We are visiting with family now in VA.  Last week we traveled to TN, KY and SC to see family and dear friends one more time.  

Of course, saying goodbyes are always hard, we kept praying we'd do it well, but how is that truly done?  

We are completely counting on many of you coming to join us for a little while across the waters! 

Thankfully we have been able to keep a few of our traditions amidst the chaos of  last minute packing.  Every year we make gingerbread houses - this year we did a gingerbread tree instead (much quicker and well...time is in short commodity these days). 

We continued with our 3 presents each which the kids really enjoyed making their lists for this year.  This is actually a pic from last year as I haven't wrapped all of them yet.

We can't take credit for the idea.  We read it on a blog a few years ago and thought it sounded fantastic - so we started it in our family. They still get plenty from grandparents!

The Gold gift (wrapped in gold paper) is something you really want.

The Frankincense Gift (wrapped in white) is something that can help you grow closer to Jesus or be used for personal worship.

The Myrrh gift (wrapped in brown paper) is something for your body (clothes, shoes, jewelry, perfume, etc).

On Christmas eve we also read the Christmas story from Luke 2 (which Ian read for us tonight).  Afterwards we sang a few carols and the kids opened one gift.

Do you have any traditions?  We'd love to hear them!  

I hope to do one more post on this side of the waters.  However, we fly out of Richmond on Sunday!!  Are we packed?  haha - Well, Christmas is tomorrow!  Let's just say we may not have too much jet lag with the hours we've been pulling. :)

We Wish You and Your Family a Very Merry Christmas!

Thank you for loving us and walking alongside us. :)