Year 2, Days 357 & 358: Christmas Eve 2017 Part 1 & Part 2

Part 1: The Eve Before Christmas Eve

I know some large churches have multiple Christmas Eve services and sometimes those start a couple of days before Christmas Eve day.  Like I mentioned before, our church is having their Christmas Eve services but at normal church services times. Tonight was the last time we would be home for the Saturday evening service, so we made it a point to go so Abishai could be with his favorite volunteer, Betsy, one more time.  Betsy doesn't know if and when she'll be serving come January 7th when the service times changes and Abishai really should be potty training and moved up soon after that.

It was a simple, yet profound candlelight service for me.  Yes!  After numerous years, either here or in Canada, we attended a proper candlelit service!  Ok, the candles are only lit for the last song, BUT, goodness I have a ton of childhood memories surrounding those candles on Christmas Eve.  No specific stories, but we did them year after year and I thought they were so neat and I needed to be so careful not to spill the hot wax that the paper was supposed to catch.  Well, check out the newest fad in candle holders!  Justin was with us and he had no clue what the candles were for! I'm really missing my side of the family this year, so it was a delight to be able to do something that we used to do as kids.

The service had a few Christmas hymns in it, a pretty straight forward Christmas message, communion, and altar call.  But during the first song, which they repeated later in the service, they showed a video of someone painting a crown of thorns as the song started with the birth of Christ and ended with this death and resurrection.  Then later on, some words were added with some of the names of God.  Then each family got a print of the painting to bring home with them.  That was pretty neat.  I needed that hour of quiet reflection between all the hustling I've been doing.  It wasn't super quiet, but just enough to help me put my thoughts back into place.

We spent the rest of the day before service putting the finishing touches on gifts and wrapping all the gifts.  I broke with my parents' tradition of doing them all on Christmas Eve after church.  I want to spend tomorrow cleaning and then do next to nothing from 6pm on.  I want to enjoy a special light supper and a Charlie Brown Christmas with the kids and then another movie with Jared in front of the fire after the kids are in bed.  (Maybe type out a few more words as well and link in all the pictures for this post).  So, little by little it is getting done, but it takes diligence, slow and steady work, planning so I don't forget anything or panic about it all, and helpers.  The kids each partnered with me to do each other's 3 gifts.  And for the record, I believe it was me that gave others the idea of the 3 present rule.  But, there have been years that we have combined a gift to make it one (like 3 books wrapped together or even separately, equals one gift).  This year, it's 3 individual items.  All wrapped to look like something they are not.  No easy guessing here.  And for the record, Gary is THE BEST present guesser of them all.

And lastly, I realized today that 2018 will begin the "20th anniversaries" of Jared and I's relationship.  In April, during the week before Easter, we will celebrate 20 years of knowing each other.  Then comes 20 years since our first date, first kiss, long snail mail love letters, etc. etc. It will be another 3 years before our 20th wedding anniversary, but I like to celebrate all the little stuff in between.  20 years of being in a relationship outside of one's own growing up family.  That's a long time in this culture!  At times I feel like I just turned 20 years old and newly married and other times I feel like I'm 50 because I've experienced so much and my physical body has it's issues.  But neverthelesss, 20 years.  That's a big deal and I'm excited for it!

Christmas Eve, part 2 aka the REAL Christmas Eve

Jared worked both services in the nursery, and I worked during the second hour.  Abishai and Keturah both went to their normal Sunday School classes and Benaiah and Justin were in their normal spots, Benaiah during slides video switching and Justin helping Grandma in 1st grade.  Oh yeah, Gary preached per normal.  We certainly had some record numbers for a "not on Christmas Eve" Christmas Eve service.  They brought out three rows of chairs into the hallway at the back of the auditorium.  And we had 9 babies and 6 workers in my part of the nursery.  Busy!

Then it was off to Grandma's house for Christmas dinner.  We told Abishai that we were going to Grandma's and he was really excited after he asked, "I take shoes off?" and we answered, "Yes!" Meaning, he was excited that he could stay at Grandma's for a little while.  The new preaching minister and his wive, Dan and Karen, and a Edward, an old family friend, (well, he's not old, but his family has been a friend of the family for over 30 years), joined us as well.  All the typical food like ham and cheesy potatoes, creamed peas, pink stuff, salad, fruit bowl, etc.  It was interesting having mostly people our age at the table.  I mean, Gary and Leah usually entertain people that are closer in age to them.

And we had a great time! We came home later than usual and now it looks like a totally legitimate snowstorm!  The wind picked up and the snow if falling fast with big flakes!  Incredible!  We'll be having our quiet little supper and movie after Abishai wakes up and we do some cleaning and packing. Yeah for snow!!!

Saturday's little snowfall.

OOOO, SNOW!!!!

Art project, sort of, and it didn't turn out right, so Jared literally rescued me from this project and did it himself, in a very "knight in shining armor" kind of way.

Is this a sword?

EVERYBODY kept posting on social media how much they LOVED the candlelit services!  I told you that they hadn't done it in a LONG time and that I'm not the only one who enjoyed it!

Sweat treat one of Keturah's leaders made for the kids in her class!

We've been eating way too many sweets!  So, we needed to munch on some veggies, too.  (I don't like how grainy this selfie camera looks, ugh, and this is why a REAL camera is ALWAYS best when taking important photos.  My phone is only 6 months old!)

Feeding his carrot to his newest favorite stuffy, the baby bunny that goes with Justin's large bunny.

Grandma knew he would enjoy this box!

Pretty sunrise on Christmas Eve morning!

Reading to little brother before church.

The fancy dinnerware comes out for Christmas in the Johnson household!  Gary always does a great job setting the table, while Leah does all the cooking.  They make a great team!

I think he was confused, but we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and Abishai got to blow out the candles!

Loads more snow today.  Perhaps it will stay until morning this time instead of just a few hours!

Abishai had to arrange his grapefruit pieces so they fit neatly into his container.  OCD much?  But he loves sharing a grapefruit with Daddy.

Walked into the boys' room and saw this.  Awww, sharing some snuggle time on Benaiah's bed.

Later, Benaiah made his way back to the bedroom after being chased by little brother and papa bear.  He's such an easy target because he crumples the minute you touch him into laughter and today, a coughing fit since he now probably has the flu like many of us have had in the last few weeks.

Benaiah wrapped one present and was done because he felt awful.  He was in bed before 10 pm for the first time in two years!

This one stayed up and talked nonsense the whole time he was wrapping.  And he said something to the effect that he can use 3 limbs to wrap gifts or it takes 3 limbs to wrap gifts.

Who knew that Jared knew how to paint? And has a little bit of skill in the handwriting department?  Say what?! 20 years and I had no idea he would be willing and able to take over my project for me.  No clue.  Ok, I knew he knows how to draw well (have you ever seen Captain Happy and fighter jets that he's drawn?), but I didn't know he could do a little painting, too.  Nice!

This is a print of the painting that was being painted on the video last night.  Fairly simple, yet powerful.  And come to find out, it was done by our creative arts director, Laura Dingman, who also writes wonderful Bible studies and sings powerfully.  Talented lady.

Keturah has been VERY faithful with the countdown calendars this year, and I guess she's been including Abishai also a few times when she has done it because she called him over to the calendar this morning to do the last one.  This was my parents' advent calendar.

I'll have to trim this up for other uses, but I finally got the Christmas picture in front of the Christmas trees done!  And I'm thankful that a friend took it, but I'm going to have to do it when we aren't so busy that I don't have time to properly set it up.  It will do though.

MORE SNOW!

LET IT SNOW! LET IT SNOW! LET IT SNOW!

I can't seem to find the time to load videos as often as I would like to.  But if you follow me on social media, I post a lot of them there.  Merry Christmas!