Christmas celebrating is in full swing at our house. We started by attending a Christmas tree lighting at our city hall on Friday night. The weather was great and we were able to stroll along, visit Santa and the Mrs., carb-up on cookies, cotton candy, popcorn, hot cocoa, and hot cider. It took two tries but our second countdown brought on the luminous glory of the giant tree and the blaze of fireworks. A nice night indeed.
On Saturday morning, we headed over to the annual Nativity Exhibit our church puts on for our community. Thanks to the donations of trees, fabric, lights, and nativities, not to mention the hours and hours provided by the members of our church, this event is a beautiful way to invite the Spirit into our hearts and keep us focused on our Savior.
This year there were many from around the world, as usual, but we really enjoyed the gingerbread nativity, made from replica molds of ones found in Europe ranging from 100-500 years old. The original molds are being housed in museums.
I thought this print was quite endearing.
And this one baffled us and left us questioning what we had been taught in the scriptures. :-)
He had a twin?!
We enjoyed listening to the music, both live and piped in, and viewing the nativities. Sophie was intrigued by the live nativity. She wanted to go up on the stage and look in the manger to see the baby Jesus. We got close to the stage but not close enough to see in the manger, then she knelt on her knee and whispered to me that baby Jesus was in there. I was struck by her simple faith and reverence and told her, "That is what Christmas is all about." Our quiet, hallowed moment was over in a flash and she was off twirling herself around but I was grateful for that special experience.
On Sunday, we were off to church and glad to have started singing the Christmas hymns in our sacrament meeting. Sophie has been waiting to wear her Christmas dress for about a month now and today she got the green light from her parents. I put her hair up and she looked like little Miss Christmas.
And okay, so it's the 4th of December, but today we finally got our advent calendar up to help Sophie and Rhys understand that Christmas is not today or tomorrow (so please stop asking).
Our first box was opened and the activity revealed: Write a letter to Santa. It was a great time to practice writing and fine motor skills as they wrote, colored, and peeled and applied stamps and sealed them up. Sophie made the following requests: snowman, snake (stuffed animal--to be friends with the one Aunt Kira and Uncle David bought her), dolphin (pillow), candy, and a duck. Rhys had some help from Mommy and requested Elmo stuff and candy. Santa does not need any help from anyone reading this blog so feel free to keep your wallets tucked away. We just wanted to keep it in on record since this blog is very much our family journal.
Other tender moments from tonight--the stuff that makes all the crazy day-to-day stuff seem like fluff--
1.) Neal and Rhys cuddled up in blankets, listening to Christmas carols on daddy's phone.
Neal and Rhys have a cute ritual when "loving" on each other. They will kiss, hug, and touch foreheads. Here they are finishing up.
While Rhys and Dada were enjoying their tunes, Sophie helped mommy put up the nativity. She was careful and arranged them well. This is the nativity my parents brought me from Israel. There were probably 5 like it at the Nativity Exhibit but they space them apart.
With our company departed we have begun to bring out the Christmas decorations and all that goes with that. Neal cleaned out gutters while stringing up the outdoor Christmas lights yesterday. There were several tomato plants growing quite healthily in our gutters! Now we know where the seeds ended up after the birds gutted so many of our tomatoes.
We were able to deliver our nativities to our church for our community's annual Nativity Exhibit this weekend, finished and sent out the Christmas cards, started decorating the inside of the house, wrapped a few gifts and packaged them up. Whew!
This is a busy time of year but so much fun and we always make sure to stop numerous times to focus on what we are truly celebrating, the gift of our Savior. It helps us not kill each other.
While Neal's sister, Kira, and brother-in-law, David were in town for the Thanksgiving holiday, we had fun seeing some of the local attractions. We visited the Heard Museum and Wildlife Sanctuary for their cool dinosaur exhibit.
Caught this little gem on video:
We also went to Sharkarosa Wildlife Ranch and enjoyed seeing the animals and learning a bit. We were not all properly dressed for the chilly weather but Kira was sweet enough to share her coat--I LOVE HER for this.
We had many up close encounters with different animals. We got to pet a lemur, joey, deer, horse, zebra, and camels. Nothing is more funny than a train of camels galloping out to be fed!
Mike Rowe taped a "Dirty Jobs" episode here!
World's Most Painfully Cold Tram Ride Ever!
We also enjoyed having Opa and Oma over, visiting, and eating! They had to share their time between families and states! We spent our last day window shopping at local outlets and going out for yummy Chinese food at Zen Chow.
We already miss you, Kira and David! Come back soon!
We were out the door early this Thanksgiving morning to participate in the Dallas 5K Turkey Trot. It was foggy and a chilly 46 degrees!
Brrrrrr!
It was a mad house! Approximately 38,000 people had registered to run BEFORE race day. It was crazy running, trying to find holes between walkers, darting parking meters, and avoiding dog leashes. It was also fun to run in those conditions and with a bunch of turkeys--really, people dressed for the occasion.
Keri ran the entirety and made the time she expected. She was happy to be cheered at the finish line by family (Oma and Opa, Kira (Neal's sis) and David) and friends (the Garvin family).
The Garvins made her a sign!
It was great to be able to accomplish this goal a year after finishing chemotherapy for skin cancer. Heavenly Father has blessed us with health and we are truly grateful.
Back at home we spent the afternoon having our non-traditional Thanksgiving feast--Indonesian food! Everyone pitched in and the eating was good!
Afterward we hung out ant chatted and the topic turned to techy stuff as it often does in our family. They even got out the scale to compare their phones' weights. Thanksgiving fun at its best!
Then we went for a nice walk before it got dark. When we got back we did a few family photos.
Tah-Dah!
We fooled around a bit more and lost one to exhaustion--on the bathroom floor of all places..
Before sending his sister off to bed, we sat and read all the notes that had been placed in the "thankful jar" that week. Our family has been greatly blessed and it is great to feel our Heavenly Father's love.
It was a fun day and we were all pretty tired by 8 p.m. which just goes to show we are getting old. But we had a great time with our family and friends and made some memories.
If somebody thinks they're a hedgehog, presumably you just give 'em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves. --Douglas Adams
We are keeping things pretty low key here until our family arrives for Thanksgiving but we have had some fun. Sophie and Rhys both enjoyed preschool activities revolving around the day of thanks. Sophie made a Thanksgiving themed place mat and used it at her preschool's Thanksgiving lunch feast. Rhys was happy making the time honored hand print turkey.
At home, we made cool turkey hats with some friends and played a variation of hide and seek wearing them. Sophie would hide and "gobble" and we would come and "hunt" her.
Later, Rhys worked on decorating our family's "thankful jar" with holiday themed pictures. Sophie practiced her cutting skills to make slips of paper for us to write our blessings on. Sophie will dictate to her parents and Rhys will use pictures of items he is thankful for.
Hope you are enjoying your own personal and family traditions this year. Feel free to share some of them in a comment.
Neal and I both had the wonderful opportunity to speak in church on the topic of "Living in Thanksgiving Daily" and "How Gratitude Brings Us Closer to Jesus Christ." What a terrific topic! After pondering, praying, and studying we both delivered the messages we feel our Heavenly Father desired of us to share.
Neal expounded on how we could "live in thanksgiving daily" by touching on Elder Wirthlin's 2000 talk by the same title. He suggested that to live in thanksgiving we must:
Open Our Eyes--"Our minds have a marvelous capacity to notice the unusual. However, the opposite is true as well: The more often we see the things around us—even the beautiful and wonderful things—the more they become invisible to us." (See Video)
Open Our Hearts--"We must let go of the negative emotions that bind our hearts and instead fill our souls with love, faith, and thanksgiving. Anger, resentment, and bitterness stunt our spiritual growth....You can cleanse your heart. You can repent of uncleanliness. That is the miracle of Christ’s atoning sacrifice. You can cleanse your heart of impurity."
Open Our Arms--"Every time we cheer another’s heart, every time we ease another’s burden, every time we lift a weary hand, we show our gratitude to that God to whom we owe all that we have and all that we are."
He closed with this uplifting thought: "As we strive to open our eyes, hearts, and arms, our step will become a little lighter, our smile will become a little brighter, and the darkness that sometimes broods over our lives will become a little lighter. Don’t be discouraged if you haven’t been an especially grateful person. Rejoice and think of what an impression you will make on those who thought they knew you. Think of how delightfully surprised they will be."
My speech focused on these points:
1. Christ was a perfect example of living in gratitude.
"The Savior, Jesus Christ, lived a life of gratitude. He expressed gratitude to His Heavenly Father in prayer when performing miracles (see John 11:41) and for earthly things such as food (see Matthew 15:36), and He gave credit to Heavenly Father for giving us all things (see Matthew 11:27).
The Savior did not seek His own will, but showed gratitude and appreciation to His Heavenly Father through obedience to all He was commanded to do." --Elder Wirthlin, 2001
2. Practicing thanksgiving regularly helps us to build a relationship with Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.
"Through expression of prayerful gratitude and thanksgiving, we show our dependence upon a higher source of wisdom and knowledge—God the Father and his Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." --Elder Hales, 1992
Richard Edgley (Oct 2003), in observing church member throughout his travels noted, "As I have pondered these faithful members, I am struck by two qualities they all seem to have. First, regardless of social or economic status or position, their humility leads to submissiveness to the Lord’s will. And second, in spite of the difficulties and trials of life, they are able to maintain a sense of gratitude for God’s blessings and life’s goodness. Humility and gratitude are truly the twin characteristics of happiness."
I loved that sentence. "Humility and gratitude are truly the twin characteristics of happiness." God wants us to be happy in this life, now.
"To the Lord Jesus, who bought us with a great price, we owe an undying debt of gratitude. It is impossible for us, weak mortals as we are, to fully comprehend and appreciate the suffering he endured on the cross so that he might gain for us victory over death. And even less can we understand the suffering he endured in Gethsemane so that we might obtain forgiveness of our sins.... But nevertheless, he endured it for our sake....All people who understand what Jesus did for us ought to love him and demonstrate that love by rendering to him, in a realistic manner, thanks and gratitude." --Pres. Romney, 1982
3. Pride is in opposition to humility and gratitude: "the twin characteristics of happiness."
"The central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. Enmity means “hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition.” It is the power by which Satan wishes to reign over us.
Pride is essentially competitive in nature. We pit our will against God’s. When we direct our pride toward God, it is in the spirit of “my will and not thine be done.”
It is manifest in so many ways, such as faultfinding, gossiping, backbiting, murmuring, living beyond our means, envying, coveting, withholding gratitude and praise that might lift another, and being unforgiving and jealous."--Pres. Benson, 1989
Bonnie Parkin (2007), stated "Gratitude requires awareness and effort, not only to feel it but to express it. Frequently we are oblivious to the Lord’s hand. We murmur, complain, resist, criticize; so often we are not grateful. In the Book of Mormon, we learn that those who murmur do not know “the dealings of that God who … created them.” (1 Nephi 2:12)."
Neal and I were so grateful to be able to take the time to dig a little deeper and reflect on such a beautiful topic. The speaker always learns the most through preparing and we thank our Heavenly Father for teaching us. We hope these thoughts on gratitude will help all of us to feel God's love for us as we all "live in thanksgiving daily."
