Christmas tradition...sorry, this is long....grab a cup of coffee!

I think this was one, if not the, best Christmas we have ever had!

It started out with our Christmas eve service where both my boys played their instruments.

It was wonderful. The service was full and we shared it with the Korean church that uses our facilities. How wonderful to hear favorite songs sung in another language and to worship along side them!We came home to no electricity!

But even that turned out great. We enjoyed our traditional dinner by candle light and talked about the many blessings that God had poured out on us this year.


The lights came on just in time for the kids to exchange their gifts and read their letters to each other. I so hope that this is one tradition my children will keep up in the future!


Christmas day my 20, 18 and 15 year olds woke ME up out of a dead sleep at 6:50!! Some things never change!!

My mom gives us each a Santa bag to open at Christmas.....kind of like a stocking. This year she put something of hers in each bag. I think this was one of the favorite gifts we all got. Alyssa received a coveted ice cream mold, Jason an antique dominoes set dated before the civil war,

Jared a crystal paper weight from Tiffanys he has always admired (numbered and documented), Steve received a dated pot that my Aunt brought back from Jericho on her first trip to Israel and I received a glass angel from Murano Italy........priceless! I just wish she could have been there to see us open each one.

But the best part of our Christmas came at the end. When all the presents and stockings were open, each of us took time to tell where they gave their Christmas $$. If you read this post, you know that we started a new tradition last year.

We decided to take the money we would spend on their large gift for Christmas and give it to them over Thanksgiving. They each then had till Christmas to give it away. Any way they want. It could be all to one place or they could spread it out. They could give it to a charity or to a person they know is having a hard time. They could use it to start a business and then give the proceeds away. The options were limitless and were their own. It was up to them, alone, to give their gift to someone else. Then on Christmas morning, instead of opening the gift, we each told how we spent the money and what came of it.

Last year was amazing and this year was no different. The best part was hearing them tell how God led them to where they gave their money.

Jared started. His english teacher been sharing with the kids in her class about her family over the semester. She told them that her daughter was a teacher in a very poor school where the kids could barely afford pencils. When Jared got his money, he went to his teacher and told her that he wanted to buy supplies or something for those kids, but he couldn't drive and couldn't ask his mom to help him (they have to do it on their own). So his teacher helped him buy each child in the class a book and an apple. The kids had alread sent him a thank you note that each signed!!! How cool is that?!

Jason said at first he had a hard time this year finding where God wanted his money.

But about 2 weeks ago, he was listening to the radio and heard them talking about a band that was giving the proceeds of their Christmas album to buy gifts for the soldiers. The radio station talked about how the soldiers families are sometimes forgotten and gave a web site where you could go and adopt a family for Christmas. Jason got a family's name and went and bought the gifts and shipped them to the family. He had some money left over and gave that to World Vision to buy clothes for kids.

Alyssa is studying Speech Language Pathology in school. She is finding that there has not been a lot of research done in this area and there is a limited number of techniques that they have to use. She found a non profit organization that grants money to the research of new techniques for Speech Pathology.
Steve.......bought a llama!! Heifer International lets you buy animals,etc for families in under developed countries. It is a means for food for them and business. Visit Heiffer to find out more.

I gave my money to Heartline Ministries. You can go here to find out more about their ministry to women in Haiti. They are currently trying to raise money for an ambulance, check it out.

This is by far my new favorite tradition.

And we ALL have agreed that we want to make it a permenant part of our Christmas......

..............that makes my heart swell!!!