Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Christmas Dancing, Lights Aglow and Mary and Joseph Up Close and Personal


With a stellar weekend forecast and a few Christmas items already on our calendar, we decided to go full out Christmas by taking in the lights about the city, making another batch of caramels, visiting a live Nativity and watching Miss M dance in the Christmas program for her dance studio.

It really is beginning to feel a little more like Christmas every day.  Our family has enjoyed a new Advent devotion we've been working through and while we might have attempted to get all fancy and make/reuse items from around the house on an advent tree (bare branches that were originally used for our tree of Thankfulness), we've abandoned those crafty dreams and are just grabbing the items and then putting them back in their place around the house.

If only we could adopt the same philosophy with school supplies, shoes, dirty laundry. Oh, I digress.

Miss M was thrilled to dance on a big stage and have her Aunt, Grandparents and entire family there to cheer her on.  Mr C tried to beg out, but when we said that Chic-Fil-A was involved, his plans changed quickly.  I'll admit that watching hundreds of "little girls" dance is getting a little old after ten years (they all look about the same), I love the opportunity to watch the older girls, especially my own, dance.  It really is her most favorite of things!  Even when the music stopped in the middle of her "Tin Solider" dance, she did not flinch.

After the dance recital, we enjoyed our second trip to Chic-Fil-A in our hometown and then were on a mission to find the best Christmas lights in the city.  Miss A was keeping track of which house was our favorite and we all had a chuckle out of her "shorthand" on named streets.  At one time, she might have yelled out in frustration "Come on people, lets just call it G Street number 7" even though the street name had no letter G in it.   Not sure we could find our "number one" house any longer with her cheat sheet.

Sunday afternoon after church, Jill whipped up a batch of caramels (three hours isn't really whipped up is it?) after Miss A's final basketball game of the "year" and then we went to a church's Living Nativity.  I can't really tell you how amazing it is to see the Nativity up close and really feel what on a very small scale what it must have been like to be Mary and Joseph in that dirty little stable with their tiny newborn baby.


The best part was that the final "scene" of the Nativity had a Cross draped in black and with a Roman Solider bowing down before it.  Wow! What a message of the "Real Reason for this Season."  Way beyond just a tiny baby. All three kids wanted to drive through again just to see it one more time. 

Miss A of course was even willing to try for the record at the Nativity: 10 times through in one night!
It's hard to complain, however, when your child wants to go through "just one more time to see Baby Jesus."  Oh, may that always be the case.   

I'm thinking that these December weekends might be my favorite weekends of the year!

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