Christmas Time Snapshots

"Freaky" the Snowman
So we are trying to join in the festive spirit of our neighborhood with Christmas lights and inflatable Christmas creatures, etc. Everything was looking pretty good until our neighbor pointed out that our inflatable snowman up in our second story window had a slightly 'freaky' look to him that was just down right scary. As we stood in my driveway a week or so ago and stared up into it the second story window we beheld the above sight. The first freaky factor was the fact that the snow man's eyes seemed to be looking right at you wherever you moved. The second freaky factor was pointed out by Ted our neighbor. He pointed out that lighting the snowman from the bottom increased the freakiness exponentially. We also discussed how there is something spooky about taking a normally loveable creature like a snowman and casting it in an eerie way (like a 'clown' from Stephen King's 'It', or 'Chuckie' the little doll, etc).
The Advent Calendar
Well, Whitney's mom got us an advent calendar for the kids this year (as pictured above). And it's been quite an experience. They definitely are into it. So as you can see there is a little book that you pull out for each day of December thus building the anticipation towards Christmas day and then on Christmas day you have the big book about Jesus birth that you read. Well there favorite part about the whole experience is the nightly pulling the day's book out. To keep it fair we alternate between Emily and Josh pulling the book out each night. Emily, being 4, gets this and sees it as fair. Josh, being 2, does not. When it's his turn to pull the book, there is peace on earth, and I am at ease. Yet when Emily gets to pull the book out Josh has a complete cataclysmic meltdown every time. 'I wanna pull it out!!!!!!'. He will listen to no reasoning and there is no substitute for getting him to stop the meltdown. Finally, I've just started letting Emily pull it out and then I'll put it back in and then let Josh pull it out which seems to work for now. Another little surprise about this Advent experience is the books themselves. They may look like cute little books but they are packed with text, have very few pictures and are exerpts from classic literature like 'the Wind in the Willows', 'the Nutcracker', 'Little Women', etc. So our kids are having a little mini Masterpiece Theatre each night before they go to bed. But overall it's been a memorable experience.

Making Christmas more meaningful

Well we're two weeks out from Christmas and the insaneness of the season I'm sure is pressing in on all of us. Here's a few things to pass on that might help this season.

Some Christmas Traditions I've heard about lately from others:

Sit around and read the Christmas story out of Luke 2 and then go around to each person in the family and let them pick out a Christmas carol for everyone to sing

Jesus Birthday Party - get a cake and sing happy BDay to Jesus and then have each person share what gift they want to give to Jesus on His birthday

Taking Christmas beyond your family:

Many of our families are quite blessed financially compared to the world. What about scaling back what you spend on each other this year and then build into your Christmas day together a story about how each of you has given money that will be used to bring light and hope to someone around the world who sees nothing but darkness and despair. For us we have known God to be a good God. He has provided for us and cared for us. We have been blessed to be in a country where we have heard the good news about Jesus and the great love He has for us. Yet the majority of the world wakes up to poverty...to filth....to miles and miles of walking to search for clean water....to Aids and disease....to violence....to forced labor and cruel hours in a plant or plantation....to prostitution....to mal-nutrition....and on and on.....How are these people supposed to believe that there is a good God who loves them? God has chosen us to be Christ's ambassadors and to be the ones who share with the world His great love for every single person of every single tribe of every single nation of every single language. Here's a couple of great ways to take Christmas and the presence of Jesus beyond your family this Christmas:

1. Give a goat, clean water, medical aid, education, etc through the World Vision gift catalogue. Go to http://www.worldvision.org/. For each gift you give you can print out a Christmas card that describes that gift. Maybe each person could give a different gift, share about it during the family gathering on Christmas day, hang it on the tree and then once you're all done the family could pray together over all the different lives that have been touched.

2. Adopt a child through compassion. How about this Christmas if you haven't adopted a child through Compassion you do that. The cool thing about Compassion adoption is that it's a long term commitment that will truly change an individual by meeting their basic life needs (food, clothing, medical care) and also give them a future (through education) and introducing them to Jesus (through Biblical teaching and discipleship). Just think how much of an impact we could have as one life is changed, a family can then be changed, a community can be changed, a city can be changed, a nation can be changed, a continent can be changed and the world can be changed. Here's another way to think about it. Compassion is a great way to begin fighting the war on terror. One of the things that terrorist groups do is that they snatch young children away and start brainwashing them with their extremism and violence. Compassion is right on the front lines of reclaiming children for Christ and fighting back against these aggressive groups. Compassion is part of raising up a new generation of Christ-followers who will stand up for God's Kingdom and His causes around the world. What an awesome thing you could be a part of. Go to their webpage and make a difference for eternity this christmas at http://www.compassion.com/.

Oh Christmas Tree

So kind of spontaneously we decided to go and get a real tree over at Wal-Mart. So I go grab one and shove it in our car. I envision a simple take it out of the car and put it in the tree stand and whamo, instant tree. Um not quite. So I'm reading on the label of the tree stand about the fact that I get to saw off the bottom part of the trunk. Oh boy. Well, So I'm out in the dark about 10:00 last night scrambling through my garage looking for different saws. Three different saws and 25 minutes later and exhausted I finally got the crazy thing sawed off. I then take it in the house and then look behind me to discover I no longer have a floor but a brand new carpet of Christmas tree needles. Then I stick the tree in the stand and discover that it won't go all the way in because there are some low branches that are in the way. So back outside I go to saw some more. Finally we then bring it back in and at last we have it in the stand.

Christmas time is fun to watch through the eyes of our kids. Emily is a very inquisitive 4 year old. As all parents do around Christmas time when we get desperate for order in our house we go for the old 'Be careful, Santa Clause is watching.' Emily, who is always processing and thinking, than asks 'how does he see me?'. That's where the parent manual ended. It's these why and how questions that throw me for a loop. So I think our answer was some cooperative effort between God and Santa Clause that results in this supernatural ability to see children and what they're doing.

Josh's favorite Christmas song has been 'Deck the Halls' or as he calls it 'boughs of holly'. On Saturday he was playing over at Kyra's house across the street and noticed that there was a Christmas tree in their living room with presents underneath. So at just the opportune time he decided to sneak over there and begin ripping open one of the presents. Kyra spotted him and notified her Mommy and Daddy. They rushed down to discover that miraculously out of the several options Josh could have opened he happened to open a present that they were going to give to him. Wow is he one lucky dude.

Express Yourself!

Well Josh finally made his debut into the world of church musical programs. Like his big sister and old man he seems entirely uninhibited at getting down and shaking his groove thing. He seems to break from any prescribed choreography and branch out into his own interpretive dancing expression. This musical extravanza happened this past Monday at their end of the year Mothers Day Out performance. Big sister and Kyra also performed as displayed in the video below.

Happy Thanksgiving

Well it's been a full visit out here in Georgia. One of the greatest things that Emily and Josh discovered yesterday were these things called leaves and lots of them. Grammy and Poppaw have a massive lot with lots and lots of trees thus lots and lots of leaves. Aunt Amanda paved a roadway system with a rake all through the back yard so they had a blast running around the track over and over. My brother-in-law John brought over his camper and set up a little campground right off the driveway. We have had a little campfire the last couple of nights and made some smores. Emily is now an RVer as she pottied and slept in a camper yesterday with her cousin Allison. We have also set up a disc golf course here on the property we have named 'Twin Creeks" that we are anxious to go try out later today. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone and may God richly bless you today!

A Step Towards Manhood

Well, it finally happened. Joshua actually received a legitimate haircut. He has had two 'hair cuts' that were feeble attempts to tame the wild toe-headed mane resting upon his melon. But yesterday Whitney caught her breath and with fear and trepidation entered into Cartoon Cuts and took the plunge. He is not only looking a little more manly but he is also about 7 pounds lighter.

Exhibit number 2 above is a wonderful brainchild from my wonderfully creative wife that I have called the 'whine list'. As you can see each child has their own chart which is prominently displayed on our refrigerator. As you can probably imagine an exhorbitant amount of whining has prompted this extreme measure to ward off this painfully annoying behavior from our children. The top half of the chart is where a 'whine' is recorded with a vertical line. A whine is considered a whine if it is a resistant remark to a parental request with that wonderfully twangy tone of voice that just drives you mad. If they make it through the day with less than 5 whines than they receive 2 stars and if they make it through the day with less than 10 whines they receive 1 star. 5 stars equals a goody. You can earn extra credit stars if you display a noteworthy moment of good manners like a non-induced 'thank you' or 'please', etc. This picture was recorded with a dead-even match with Emily and 4 whines and Josh at 4 whines.

Some Things I'm Thinking about lately

I thought I would take a moment to unpack a few things that have been on my mind lately. One thing is just the power of art and music. In the last few weeks I've just been particularly thankful for artists and musicians who write and produce songs that impact me and help me see truth and experience God in new ways. Here's a few songs that have stood out to me lately: The Motions by Matthew West, By Your Side by Tenth Avenue North, and What do I know of holy by Addison Road. God just does something with truth in melody that goes beyond just reading some lyrics.

I've also been thinking alot lately about the two dimensions to our worship. On the one hand we worship a God who says, 'Come to me'...a God who is close to the broken hearted and dwells the with the lowly....a God who tells us to call Him Abba or 'Daddy'....and then on the other hand we worship a God who is awesome and terrible and fearful and majestic and His wisdom is indescribable as Creator and Envisioner of all we see...He is holy and dwells in unapproachable light....He is the God that even his messenger angels would cause humans to fall down in complete fear...The God who made Isaiah, a pretty righteous guy, say that he was 'undone' and 'ruined' in His presence....so I am striving to approach God for all that He is....the approachable God and the awesome and mighty God.

I still think about the poor alot and the needy. I mean when you strive to read through the Bible...let's face it...it's just everywhere you look. I've been researching more some of the issues like social justice and even how our consumer dollars might just be supporting child slavery in some country halfway around the world. So I'm to the point where I want to start putting into practice what God is screaming to us. Like simple things like striving to buy fair trade products like coffee. Like reading more about these issues. I just bought a book by Wes Stafford, the founder of Compassion International, called 'Too Small To Ignore' which really takes a look at the global crisis that is facing young children (orphaned, stricken with Aids, unclean water, etc). If you haven't adopted a Compassion child then you should. Go to their webpage and make it happen. Whitney and I have had two compassion children and I am a firm believer in this ministry and long-term impact it can have.

Lastly, as we get close to 'Black Friday' and 'Cyber Monday' I have to give my two cents worth about Christmas. I can no longer ignore my heart when it comes to this consumer crazy holiday. Americans spend 450 Billion dollars on Christmas presents every year. The fact is for about 10 billion dollars we could solve the world's unclean water problem...hmmm...so we are doing some things different this year. We are going to spend less money on presents (do some creative homemade stuff) and then take the money we wouldn't spent and give it to people so that this Christmas a little kid living in poverty and despair may be surprised by grace this year and forever changed by the presence of Christ. There's a great web page called Advent Conspiracy which advocates looking at Christmas a little different. I would encourage you to check it out.