Christmas Traditions

Christmas has come and gone again for another year. It has been a very busy but good week. It also feels very nice to be home. From the 15th until the 23rd I was housesitting for Andrew and Aimee and then I have been at my parent's this past week for various Christmas gatherings, etc.
I love our Christmas traditions. I know there will be a day when things will have to change due to our family growing and accomodating my brother's girlfriend's sides of the family, but for right now I am enjoying our familiar and comforting traditions. This is probably one of the first years in a long time that I have not felt stessed and anxious over Christmas. Rather, it was a season of refreshment and joy as I attempted to keep my heart and eyes focused on Jesus rather than getting consumed within all of the hussle and bussle that the season can often bring with it.


Christmas Eve
On Christmas Eve we go to my Grandma's for a delicious christmas dinner - turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, hot veggies, yummy salads, fresh, homemade buns and christmas baking for dessert. It is the one meal over Christmas that I completely indulged in and just ate until I was soooo full. It was great - very worth it!





















After supper we go to church as a family for the Christmas Eve service to my parent's church and then head back to my Grandma's to open gifts and play games for the rest of the evening.

Every year we take turns reading the Christmas story and leading the devotional. This used to be my Grandpa's job, but ever since he died 6 years ago, we have all taken turns. We have some pretty big shoes to fill, but I think we're doing a pretty good job and it's neat to hear the thoughts of some people who ordinarily probably wouldn't have shared.











































I love Starbucks. That is no secret to most people, but this year was an exceptional year for gift cards and Starbucks products. I raked in the mugs and gift cards. Most of the gift cards came from various gift exchanges and draws. On Christmas Eve, 10 out of the 13 people received mugs of some sort and a Starbucks gift card. It appears that I come from a family with some serious coffee addictions and a general love for Starbucks! Bring on the Raspberry Iced Tea Lemonades and the Latte's.





This year we expanded our horizons and played Balderdash instead of the usual Rook. It was a much welcomed change :)









Christmas Day
Christmas morning has and will forever remain our immediate family Christmas. I love waking up at my parent's place to the dog licking my hand and trying to drag me out of bed and the wafting smell of my mom's Christmas bread baking in the oven. This year instead of asking for things I want rather than things I need (which I normally do), I tried giving ideas to people for things that I need. I am definitely not in lack of anything and that was extremely evident again on Christmas morning. My family was very good to me.

My mom LOVED her gift from us kids (the blown up pictures of us as little kids and now of us as we have grown up). She even had tears in her eyes.

Dominika LOVES the Barefoot Contessa. She adores her, so Derek and I got her some of Ina's cookbooks to add to her collection. The screams of pure joy and excitement that left Dom's mouth were quite something at 9:30 in the morning.

Me with all of my Starbucks gifs so far

Another great traditon that goes on in our family on Christmas day is that my mom's extended family (her cousins, my second cousins, etc) all go to the Fairmont for Christmas brunch. The food is delicious and it's a good time to catch up with cousins I haven't seen since the previous Christmas. I love that we all get to dress up nice and go and eat a very delicious meal together. This year we had the most people there that we have had in years. I think there was somewhere around 75-80 people who showed up. It was great!

For the remainder of Christmas day my family laid low around the house, played games and ate little finger foods. We were originally supposed to have a fondue, but due to 7 VERY FULL bellies, we had to cut some food out of our original menu plan. Heidi, I still have your cheese fondue recipe and I intend on using it soon!

For Christmas this year, my brothers and I got my dad an awesome crokinole board, which got a lot of use already by everyone on Christmas day. Even Kitty joined in on the fun. He really is quite the strange cat!

Mary's Prayer

For the past few weeks I have been somewhat discouraged at my lack of "feeling" the real spirit of Christmas and my extremely poor attempt at devotions. Nothing seems to hit close to home and speak to my heart...until tonight!
Tonight at church the following excerpt was read from Max Lucado's book "God Came Near" and all of a sudden something struck my heart. The reality of what Christmas truly is about and not what we have made it to be found its way to my heart.

Mary's Prayer

God. 0 infant-God. Heaven's fairest child.

Conceived by the union of divine grace with our disgrace.

Sleep well.Sleep well.

Bask in the coolness of this night bright with diamonds.

Sleep well, for the heat of anger simmers nearby.

Enjoy the silence of the crib, for the noise of confusion rumbles in your future.

Savor the sweet safety of my arms,

for a day is soon coming when I cannot protect you.

Rest well, tiny hands.

For though you belong to a king, you will touch no satin, own no gold.

You will grasp no pen, guide no brush.

No, your tiny hands are reserved for works more precious:

to touch a leper's open wound,

to wipe a widow's weary tear,

to claw the ground of Gethsemane.

Your hands, so tiny, so tender, so white -- clutched tonight in an infant's fist.

They aren't destined to hold a scepter nor wave from a palace balcony.

They are reserved instead for a Roman spike that will staple them to a Roman Cross.

Sleep deeply, tiny eyes.

Sleep while you can.

For soon the blurriness will clear

and you will see the mess we have made of your world.

You will see our nakedness, for we cannot hide.

You will see our selfishness, for we cannot give.

You will see our pain, for we cannot heal.

0 eyes that will see hell's darkest pit and witness her ugly prince ...

sleep, please sleep;

sleep while you can.

Lay still, tiny mouth.

Lay still mouth from which eternity will speak.

Tiny tongue that will soon summon the dead,

that will define grace,

that will silence our foolishness.

Rosebud lips-upon which ride a starborn kiss of forgiveness

to those who believe you, and of death to those who deny you - lay still.

And tiny feet cupped in the palm of my hand, rest.

For many difficult steps lie ahead for you.

Do you taste the dust of the trails you will travel?

Do you feel the cold sea water upon which you will walk?

Do you wrench at the invasion of the nail you will bear?

Do you fear the steep descent down the spiral staircase into Satan's domain?

Rest, tiny feet.

Rest today so that tomorrow you might walk with power.

Rest. For millions will follow in your steps.

And little heart ... holy heart ...

pumping the blood of life through the universe:

How many times will we break you?

You'll be torn by the thorns of our accusations.

You'll be ravaged by the cancer of our sin.

You'll be crushed under the weight of your own sorrow.

And you'll be pierced by the spear of our rejection.

Yet in that piercing,

in that ultimate ripping of muscle and membrane,

in that final rush of blood and water,

you will find rest.

Your hands will be freed,

your eyes will see justice,

your lips will smile,

and your feet will carry you home.

And there you'll rest again--

this time in the embrace of your Father.

After reading this, it is impossible to look through the same set of eyes at Christmas. No longer is it a holiday just about a cute little baby that was born to a virgin in a cute little stable in Bethlehem one night. No, it is a holiday that celebrates the Prince of Peace was born in a dirty, gross stable to a very frightened woman who was born so that He may die for you and for me. The birth of Christ and his death are so closely linked, far more than I ever thought they were. Tonight my heart had an "ah ha!" sort of moment as this poem was read and the eyes and the ears of my heart were opened. I think I finally get it! This is not to say that this shouldn't be a season of joy. The birth of Christ is definitely cause to celebrate, but be mindful that the birth of Christ was not a cushy sort of event. Rather it is a time for us to reflect on the reason why Jesus was born and who he came to save.

May this Christmas be a time of celebration, great joy and thanksgiving as we reflect on what really happened that night in Bethlehem and the big picture behind the birth of Christ!

Merry Christmas!

Skating

Well, school has officially come to a close for the 2007 year and I couldn't be happier. I have been anticipating this tiny bit of a mental break for quite some time now. I will be spending most of my holidays studying, but for the next few days I plan on taking it easy, breathing deeply and just being and spending time with Jesus. I am going to treasure these next few days as much as possible.

Due to some home renovations, Sabrina needed to venture out of her house, so we met at St. Vital to keep each other company and to just hang out. It was quite wonderful! Everytime I see Gavin, he seems to be getting cuter and cuter and his personality is slowly coming out. I can't wait to see the boy he becomes and encounter his personality. I have a feeling it is going to be great!

Auntie Kara getting her cuddles in and keeping warm over Starbucks. He is a joy!

Today was also Cole's last day of school before the Christmas break, so to celebrate the both of us being done for the year, we packed up our skates and headed down to the Forks to do some skating for the first time this winter. We couldn't have picked a better evening to go because the weather was perfect - not too cold and the ice was like glass, no bumps.

Cole is still in the learning stages of skating and has a hard time staying up for a long period of time, but it's fun to watch him get the hang of it. He is the kind of child that tends to be quite hard on himself if he does not succeed on the first try, so the first little bit of skating turned out to be quite discouraging for him. I'm hoping that with lots of practice and opportunity to skate this winter, he will gain confidence in himself and go along with the learning process. Despite some frustrating moments, I think he still had fun.

The skating trails at the Forks are quite fun. It's almost as if you are on a skating adventure - Cole and I let our imaginations take charge and we headed out on quite the expedition. It made the falling and the loss of balance much easier to handle.

Following skating, we headed into the Forks Market to grab a bite to eat.

Winter Photo Shoot

A couple weeks ago, my brothers, Dominika and I got together to take some current pictures of us for the completion of my mom's Christmas gift. I think we probably picked one of the coldest days of the year (I think it was around -40 degrees celcius). What were we thinking? It occured to us that we do not take very good pictures. Getting everyone to look somewhat decent was quite a challenge, but we had fun. I think out of the 140 pictures that were taken, we are using maybe 5 total for the gift.

These were some the pictures that will NOT be used:

Now for the good ones:

FaithWorks Christmas Program

Last Saturday evening our church had its Christmas program/coffee house. It was quite a cute evening as most of the kids were the entertainment and some great Christmas carols. For those of you who know Cole, you will know that he does not like attention. He is a pretty shy kid and avoids conversation and the spotlight if at all possible. He did NOT want to be up on that stage, but with some bribing and eventually telling him he had no choice but to go up, he went with the rest of his class. He didn't say the lines that he was supposed to (I did that for him - I am his POD leader), but at least he went up! I was very proud of him.

My 4&5 year old POD group - they are like sunday school classes. They looked so adorable in their angel and shepherd costumes!

Singing their songs

I also finally completed all of my Christmas baking to give away as gifts. They turned out rather well I think. I had a lot of fun making them - even if it took awhile to get into it and complete them.

The Finished Products

A Brief Update

On Saturday Graham & Kristy and Andrew & Aimee all left for Mexico (lucky bums), so currently I am residing at Andrew & Aimee's for the week. I have lots of pictures to post of Christmas concerts and programs, so hopefully at some point this week I will be able to upload them. Stay tuned....

As for the rest of life, I am about to head off to my second last day of classes before Christmas. I am extremely excited. I can't wait for Tuesday to be over. I write an exam this afternoon and just that alone will take a huge load off so that I can concentrate on more important things like Christmas. I have so much shopping to do, it's crazy. I plan to head out on Tuesday night to finish it once and for all!

A Friesen Gathering and a Party

Last night a "Friesen Gathering" was held at Starbucks and it was delightful. We had a new member join the group, which was great fun. Gavin keeps getting cuter and Sabrina looks absolutely radiant. It had been far too long since the 3 of us had sat down and had a really good conversation and just catch up with each other. All 3 of us are pretty busy people, so it was great to find a time to meet before the craziness of Christmas and family gatherings kick in - plus it was a nice study break for me. And just on a side note here, this little gathering was planned only 1 day before hand too. Now some of you may be going "yeah, so???". Well, the 3 of us are not very spontaneous people, but we are aspiring to improve in that department and it looks as though we succeeded again, so horray for us!

Gotta love his furrowed brow

Auntie Kristy getting some good cuddle time in with Gavin

It seems as though the busy-ness of Christmas hasn't kicked in yet for me (perhaps it is because I still have a ton of Christmas shopping to do). My plan is to make it until the end of Monday when I write my final Kinesiology exam and then on Tuesday night I will venture out to the malls to finish up all the stuff I have left to buy.

"Ready my heart for the birth of Emmanuel, ready my soul for the Prince of Peace..."

I LOVE Christmas! It is probably one of my favorite times of year, however it seems as though the getting ready and preparing my heart for the birth of Christ has been postponed or put on the shelf. Not sure why that is, but that's the reality. I don't think I can make any excuses nor explain the lack of desire to do my devotionals. It's just not there. It would seem as though I am much more concentrated in my studying and my Christmas baking. For the first time in years, there has also been a lack of Christmas music filling the rooms of this house. My heart and soul feel anxious - not content and at peace as they should be in a season such as this. There are 12 more days until Christmas - not a ton of time to prepare my heart to be in the place where it probably should be, but yet still enough time to make some progress and take a few steps in that direction.

On a completely seperate note...
Tonight at school I finished my last clinic rotation of my junior semester. So to celebrate my other 5 classmates, my supervisor and I had a party. Yummy food was eaten and delicious egg nog and rum drinks were consumed. I have never laughed as hard as I did tonight. I am so blessed to have a group of friends at school that truly love life and who bring a lot of joy into my life.

Our party looks pretty lame, but we really did have a lot of fun!

A Family Affair

Today I spent the day at my parents place where we celebrated my Grandma's 78th Birthday. We took her out for lunch at the Empress of China (the food has really gone downhill in the last couple of years - the food just has not sat right with me all day) and spent time together as a family.

Happy Birthday Grandma! I wish you all the best in the coming year. May God continue to bless you in all that you do. I love you lots.

Kevin and my cousin Dillon play on a senior men's basketball team and they had a game this afternoon, so we all went out to watch them play. Sometimes it makes me wish that I had more time in my life to be able to play on a senior women's volleyball team or something. Perhaps that can be on the list of things to do next fall once school is done. The game did not end up in their favor, but it was entertaining to say the least. I couldn't believe how whiney men could be with fouls and injuries. I lost count after awhile of seeing guys overexaggerating their falls in order to get a foul called against the other team. It was quite something!

Dominika and my mom and I also did some Christmas baking today. I am not quite finished yet, but I am getting close. I believe all I have to finish is my nanaimo bar and my cream wafers (I have attempted the cream wafers already, but for some reason they did not turn out. Not sure what went wrong, but my mom is going to fiddle around with my dough to see if she can get them to cooperated). Last night my mom and I made carmal corn/poppycock. It turned out quite well and is extremely yummy. I could eat that stuff forever! Today we made the peanut butter balls. The 3 of us had such a good time. We make quite the team. We all bake very differently from each other and so when we combine our talent's, the process becomes quite entertaining. Some people pay too much attention to detail and others don't pay quite so much attention.

Due to the casualness of my family, we rarely eat at the dinner table. We often eat in front of the tv in the basement. It's comfortable and very low key. However, today they felt like being traditional and we actually ate at the dining room table with lit candles and christmas music playing in the background. We had delightful conversation and it was a very nice change if I do say so myself!

It was very nice to be able to spend the day with my family. So often family can drive us crazy, but on days like today you realize how precious and fun they can actually be. A couple years ago you would have never heard me say such things. My family drove me crazy - it's why I moved out as soon as I did. But over the years we have all grown - me, my parents and my brothers. We have never gotten along as well as we have in the past year or so. It's wonderful.

I had breakfast last week with an amazing friend of mine and we talked about family and how we don't know much about our family's history's and where they have come from. What makes our family's tick? Why do our parents do things that drive us crazy and don't make sense? I can't say that I know the answers to those questions at this moment, but I am slowly learning.

I have spent many hundreds of dollars on therapy trying to figure out how I was going to "change" them, when in fact I really cannot change them at all. Rather, I needed to change who I was and try to understand why they do the things they do. Perhaps my dad has never told me he loves me because his parents never told him that and perhaps my mom doesn't communicate very well because her mom doesn't communicate well with her.

In the past year my eyes have been opened into the lives of my parents, thus allowing me to be able to extend grace to them rather than resort to anger and resentment because they do not act in the way that I would want them to. I will never change them and who they are, but I can change me. My parents are wonderful people, but like everyone else in this world they have their flaws. The trick to getting past the flaws is to extend grace. I hope that one day my parents and I will have an awesome relationship and slowly by surely it is getting there - one step at a time.

Not sure if any of the above made any sense, but it has just been something that has been on my heart this past week.

A little bit of Fun

A number of blogs I visit have been posting this. I think it's so great. Check it out:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1192859716


Hope your day is a wonderful one!

A "Blah" sort of week

It seems as though I am having a hard time becoming motivated this Christmas. I'm not sure why. I have had my list of Christmas baking ready to go for weeks now, but I have been either too busy or just plain tired. Baking is my outlet - it's what I do when I am stressed. Now instead it would appear that laying in bed trying to soothe a headache is a higher priority. Maybe once I begin actually baking something I will be inspired and I will just keep on going. School is not super busy right now, so I should probably be taking advantage of this time to either get ahead in some of my school work or just get my Christmas baking done!

It was kind of a blah sort of week for me. Not sure why. Part of it was definitely because my medication was not working as great. My headaches didn't seem to want to go away, so that just then affects all parts of my life. My clinic days at school weren't that great - I thought a couple of times, "why is it that I want to be a massage therapist again?" My client's weren't very encouraging and they seemed to know everything and my opinion and my knowledge didn't seem to matter to them.

Although last night Kristy, Aimee and I went to go and see August Rush in the theaters. It was VERY good. It makes me want to sing and be able to play music from the rooftops. It's a very cute story and I would highly recommend seeing it. Last night was definitely the highlight in my week (although seeing Gavin again on Tuesday was definitely a highlight as well - nothing warms the heart like a newborn). It seems as though just being in a low key environment with friends and just being able to "be" is exactly what I need right now.

Well, enough of my rants. I must go and be productive for the day before time passes by and it becomes too late to do anything.