Feeling the Spirit of Christ-mas

At this Christmas season, it is extra awesome to me to speak of Christ and rejoice in Christ and hear others doing the same so often. I love the sincere "Merry Christmas"es that have been given to me this week and especially today in church by friends I've made here over the past couple months.

This month in our family, we have had each lesson of Family Night centered around the symbols and events of the Savior's birth. I'm not sure I remember which topics we spoke of each week, but our lessons have been on Luke 2, angels visiting the earth (and we always remember that angels' first words to those they visit are, "fear not"), the shepherds, the wise men, the star, ornaments, green, white, lights, etc. All the good stuff. Today I remembered at lunch that we didn't talk about the color red so I brought it up and one of my kids said it reminds us of Jesus' blood. Excellent answer. It's what I thought of too, but I don't remember really talking about that symbol each Christmas season.

Today our lesson in elders quorum was on receiving patriarchal blessings and living by them as our personal scriptures. The room was filled with a thick sense of the Spirit. I love my patriarchal blessing and I read it often. Sometimes every few months, sometimes more often. Our teacher today told us that he hasn't received his blessing yet and he is going to get it now. He's thought about it for a long time and with this lesson he decided it was time. He also said that (one of) the presenter(s) in our Christmas program in sacrament meeting today is our stake patriarch. "One more thing about me getting my patriarchal blessing," he said. The brethren who participated were excited and felt blessed to have received their patriarchal blessings. One quorum member said his dad got called as a patriarch about ten years ago. I shared my experience of fasting with my patriarch before receiving my blessing. The Spirit was so strong. Feeling the Spirit is the best feeling ever and it tells me I'm doing the right things in life. Here's the General Conference talk our lesson focused on: President Monson, Oct 1986 General Conference.

This Christmas season has passed by very quickly with our moving into a new home and the associated busy-ness. We are buying a few presents for each other (Angie and I) and we are getting a few things for our boys. It's a very non-commercial kind of Christmas, something we have strived for in years past and are getting better at it. My feeling that is we save for the things that we want and Christmas is a time to try to find something that we want someone else to buy. I'm feeling more than a little wasteful about it. But this is our best year so far. I feel really good about that.

PS - it's snowing outside. It's the kind of slow, gentle snow that makes me feel like it's Christmastime. Much better than the driven, sideways snow that takes my mind off Christmas and turns it to survival mode.

The 12 Days of Christmas

For the past twelve days, our family has been the happy recipient of Christmas love and cheer from an unknown Do Gooder. We really have no idea who it is. There was a lot of sneakery and staying up late at night for them to put all the gifts on our porch without us hearing them. Angie is up late every night with Briggie and I wake up early in the morning to start my routine.

One night was a little different, though. We heard what sounded like someone tripping on our wooden porch and making a loud thump! We didn't want to run outside to see who it was and spoil the fun. A minute later there was a loud knock on our porch window.

That's odd.

I slowly rose from the couch and looked out the front door's window. There was a plate full of sugary delights. That's when we realized the purpose for the non-sneakery for one night. Those home-baked goodies would have been enjoyed by Ohioan fauna (namely, raccoons and neighborhood cats) before we found them the next morning. Nice move, Do Gooders! And well made!

Our Christmas season has been one of the best that I can remember because of the love and care shown to our family. We have, in turn, decided to help others more than we normally would have. And we tried extra hard to teach our kids that the true meaning of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We talked about the symbols that remind us of gospel truths and signs of Christ's birth. We also taught our boys to be grateful for what gifts they do receive on Christmas morning because it won't be everything they asked for.

We are so blessed. We see the tender mercies of the Lord all around us and feel the love of...someone...doing good and spreading Christmas cheer.

I Am So Excited About Christmas!

Our decorated Christmas Tree, plus boys.
Ya, that's a Santa hat on the angel.

I just love Christmas. My favorite parts are 1) the music and 2) that people are a lot nicer to each other than during the rest of the year.

I listen to lots of Christmas music starting the day after Thanksgiving until some time between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. I don't really have anything against listening after the new year, but I do try to be thankful for Thanksgiving and give it every day it deserves. So I respectfully wait until I wake up Friday morning to begin listening to my favorite music. It's one of my ways to be thankful for Thanksgiving. But this post is about Christmas!

So I crank the Christmas music for hours every day. We have lots of CDs at my house with a variety of musical goodness. I had my favorites before I got married. They were pretty much what I grew up listening to at home. After I got married I also listened to a bunch of my wife's favorites. Now, with free music sites like Pandora and a host of other sites, the variety of songs keeps me going longer before I feel like I just can't listen to them any more.

When Christmas is over and the cheer wears off a bit, so does my desire to keep hearing the songs. Part of the magic for me is looking forward to Christmas Day. So when the Day is over and thoughts set in of going home from vacation or going back to work, I ease up on the listening until I stop all together. It's just a natural change of focus so there's no set day for me.

Now, fast forward to July. There's a bio-clock that goes off inside me in July to hear more of my favorite Christmas songs. Maybe it's subconsciously bestowed upon me by song Christmas in July. Maybe. But probably not. I'm not sure. But I do hum or sing a few songs to myself in the heat of the summer. Then I tell myself it's just silly and I get on with my non-December, non-Christmas life.

Every year, after the summer ends there is a fun build up of holidays and celebrations. I'm not sure why I get so excited during the fall, but I guess my birthday, Halloween and Thanksgiving are enough to get me over the dreary fact that the days are getting shorter and colder. But the week or two before Thanksgiving I'm chomping at the bit for some happy Merry Christmas tunes.

Aaaaaahhhhhh........

Christmas is coming!