Tag: Christmas

  • Christmas Recap

    This morning we are vowing to leave the house at some point. Yesterday, as is our habit, we hunkered down for a day of pure family. It turned out to be a really nice Christmas.

    Christmas technically kicked off on Thursday night with a fun little trip to Orange County. A couple from our community group invited us to their family’s traditional Christmas Eve party. That was a lot of fun! Apparently, this group of people have been hanging out on Christmas Eve together for more than 20 years. So the house was filled with a mixture of joy and shared known. It was really cool to see the generational aspect of the whole thing, the embracing of some traditions, and it really just got our family in the mood for Christmas.

    Christmas morning, the kids got up early, as decreed in the New Testament. At about 5:30 they woke us up with, “It’s Christmas! Can we open presents NOW????” We made them wait until 7:00 before we opened presents so mom and dad could at least see straight… and we had to listen to them count down every minute!

    Ah, the anticipation of children and the power of parents to torture by saying “be patient.”

    Best Present

    • Paul: Nintendo DS
    • Megan: Sweet digital camera and a photo blog to share
    • Dad: Membership to J.R. Organics CSA
    • Mom: A new wedding ring (she had lost hers a few years ago)
    • Stoney: A new collar
    • Lovely: A cat bed

    From about 8:00 AM on we all just laid around. The kids played with their toys. Mom and dad watched some movies. I think that was about it until lunch.

    christmas-ham

    Since Kristen isn’t feeling great I was in charge of Christmas dinner. With just four of us… we kept it simple. Ham, cranberry, rolls, mashed potatos. Oops, I forgot vegitables! (No one complained)

    After dinner, we all kind of scattered and just rested. Paul fell asleep about 2:30 PM and didn’t wake up until 3:30 AM! Megan watched TV with me. Kristen took naps off and on all day. We were basically bums!

    Later, I watched the Chargers dismantle the Titans intersperced with endless episodes of Mythbusters. And that was Christmas.

  • An Honest Christmas Scam

  • Our Christmas Video

  • Christmas Lists

    Photo by gazzat via Flickr (creative commons)
    Photo by gazzat via Flickr (creative commons)

    It is December 12th.

    Less than two weeks until Christmas and I don’t think a single gift has been purchased. Not a little one, not a big one.

    It’s not that the kids don’t have lists… it’s that Kristen and I are avoiding their lists.

    A couple years ago we decided we wanted Christmas to be about Jesus and not gift giving so we toned the whole thing down. So now we have told the kids they will get 1 big gift and a couple small gifts. But somehow that always mushrooms at the end and they end up getting a lot of little things.

    In the past I’ve had an issue with Christmas. Consumerism. Santa Claus. Baby Jesus. You know, the normal.

    This year I just don’t feel like it. Maybe its the weather here in San Diego and maybe it’s life circumstances? But the thought of heading to the mall and buying things my kids really don’t need with money I really don’t want to spend… it’s just not as appealing as it was last year.

    I know that is anti-American consumerism of me to say. But I really just want to skip gift giving in 2009.

    And yet, we will do it for the children.

    Where are my car keys? The mall opens in 15 minutes.

  • December Nights

    Yesterday my family went to December Nights. At the heart of San Diego’s tourist industry stands Balboa Park. It’s a very cool complex of museums, gardens, and of course the San Diego Zoo. Like residents of most tourist destinations, very few San Diego residents regularly go to the tourist industries epicenter. I don’t know what that is, but it’s the same reason why I lived in Chicago for 8 years but have never been to the top of the Sears Tower.

    Once per year, the residents of San Diego go to Balboa Park for a community festival called December Nights. As Midwesterners, we laugh at the Santa Claus’s and hot chocolate stands among the palm trees… but for San Diego folks this is about as cold as it’ll get and they are feeling the Christmas spirit.

    It’s an event filled with wonderful food stands, choirs and dance troupes, and vendors peddling their art.

    It’s also filled with SoCal flavor. Yuppies bring their foo foo dogs. Families bring their kids and grandparents. The singles scene crowds into the 21+ booze area. Political nut cases try to get you to sign their ballot petition. Kids sell candy, some for legit causes some for illegitimate causes. Someone in the parking lot was likely selling weed. Vendors walk around trying to sell you stuff that you don’t want. (But at least they have nice candy canes!) It’s really the same crowd you’ll see at the beach, baseball games, or any other street market in the city.

    Perhaps the most fun thing about living in a tourist destination is being a local who gets to play when all the tourists go home?

  • Reigning in Christmas

    This was the 3rd year where Kristen and I really controlled Christmas instead of Christmas controlling us. We’ve always had a desire to keep Christmas in it’s rightful place. It seems like it is finally sinking in and becoming a habit.

    The good news is that anyone can control Christmas!

    Practically, we are celebrating another Christmas paying for everything in cash. (Gasp! You can do that?) Around Thanksgiving Kristen and I discussed how much we wanted to spend and we did a good job sticking to our gift giving budget. (Our big splurge was the new TV. The crazy thing about that is it was the first TV I’d ever bought!)

    We don’t have the best history as far as gift giving goes. Like a lot of couples, we completely overspent for years. In those earlier days of our marriage, when we had more cash flow than wisdom to handle it, we managed to spend way more than we could afford and got used to paying off Christmas debt well into Spring.

    My only encouragement to those who want to make a change is plan early and pay cash. I don’t mean “buy early” as that’s not the best way to get deals. Just plan early and set aside some cash to buy gifts. From there, commit to not dipping into savings or using a credit card.

    Here’s the kicker. We’re less stressed out about it and it gives us a chance to teach our kids about Jesus. Now that Christmas is over I have zero guilt about what we spent. The secret is that the kids are just as happy with fewer, smaller presents, as they were when we spent a lot! The Incarnation didn’t happen so we could get further entrapped! He came to fully release us from bondage. That means the bondage of sin. But it also means that Jesus’ taking on flesh is a reminder that we can be released from our other indebtedness.

    A simpler Christmas is over the top fun. I just hope we can be even more disciplined in 2009.

  • War is Over?

    If you are involved, celebrate how much has been accomplished and let’s look forward to 2009! If you’re not involved in bringing justice, mercy, and peace to the world make 2009 the time when you will get off your butt and do something.

    Learn how you can get involved with Invisible Children.

  • Christmas Photos


    Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

  • The Anticipation of Christmas

    A shared experience most of us have is waiting for Christmas morning. Wait? Waiting sucks! Christmas may be the one last great place we all wait for something… in a “now” culture, to have something to wait for is a lesson waiting to be taught.

    I remember that my family wasn’t very consistent with Christmas morning. Some years we woke up at the buttcrack of dawn to tear all of our presents open before collapsing for an 8 AM nap. Other years we woke up and had to stay in our rooms while my dad and stepmom made breakfast and made us eat a big breakfast before opening presents. Pure evil torture! My mom only seems to remember one Christmas in relationship to growing up. Her first year as a single mom… she refers to this Christmas a lot as the tree with one strand of lights. We had nothing. I think it broke her heart to know that we had almost nothing to open. But as a kid it wasn’t a big deal! Even as a young married couple, there was a time when the anticipation of Christmas was too much and our “just one” present on Christmas eve turned into opening everything under the tree. We totally ruined Christmas morning in a moment of guilty tearing! Something tells me, as a newlywed couple, that we’d had enough waiting that year! “Forget waiting… we’re free!”

    But I think having kids finally has helped me understand gift giving as anticipation.

    Two thousand years ago the people of the earth yearned in anticipation for the Messiah. Paul captured this feeling of waiting vs. anticipation quite well in Romans 8:

    We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

    Christmas and gift giving are integrally tied to the anticipation of the moment we discover what we’re receiving. It’s emotional and it’s physical, isn’t it?

    Everyday our kids ask me, “How much more (sic) longer until I get to open my gifts?” and “Tell me what my gifts are!” This is our kids groaning in anticipation of present time!

    The anticipation of Christmas is really a flashback physical experience of the anticipation of 2,000 years ago. The earth groaned for a Messiah… they waited in anticipation. They longed for the Chosen One. The moment of his arrival was precious.

    Silent night, holy night
    All is calm, all is bright
    Round yon Virgin Mother and Child
    Holy Infant so tender and mild
    Sleep in heavenly peace
    Sleep in heavenly peace

    Silent night, holy night!
    Shepherds quake at the sight
    Glories stream from heaven afar
    Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!
    Christ, the Saviour is born
    Christ, the Saviour is born

    Silent night, holy night
    Son of God, love’s pure light
    Radiant beams from Thy holy face
    With the dawn of redeeming grace
    Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth
    Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth

    I love experiencing Christmas through the eyes of a 5 and 7 year old. Each day they wake up and carefully examine the tree and their stockings to see if anything new has appeared. They each count how many gifts have their name on them. Their anticipation is more than mental, it is physical! They literally groan. “Is it here yet?” On Wednesday night they won’t be able to sleep as the anticipation will be too much! On Thursday morning we will torture them by making them lay in bed while we prepare the living room. In those last few moments it will be real, emotional, PHYSICAL anticipation.

    It’s our job as parents to remind them of that moment. That moment is the real meaning of Christmas. God answered the earth physical anticipation and groaning with the Child.

  • Merry Christmas

    From our family to yours, Merry Christmas.