Tag Archives: christmas

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Ten years ago, I wrote a poem in the middle of the night. It's been one of my favorites ever since.

The Little Angel Sings

From dark to light the Voice speaks life,
And worlds and souls take wing.
From heav'n the guardians look down;
A little angel sings.

From light to dark men's hearts soon turn,
A selfish path they keep.
And as he sees their fall begin,
The little angel weeps.

Years upon years, with sorrow vast,
What evil mortals sow.
But of the love that waits for them
The little angel knows. ...continue reading →

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Life is funny sometimes. You don't appreciate good health till you've been mired in sickness. You don't crave rest till you've been swamped in busyness. You don't love home till you've been away from it.

Well, that last one is relative. I always love home. 🙂

The point is, the hard parts in life make the good ones all the more wonderful.

This is a very long and winding post about how that has looked for us this past month, and it might not be interesting to anyone but my mom and dad, but here goes. 🙂 The trip, the sick, and the holiday -- that's how I sorted out my notes. And the title will make sense eventually, I promise.

To make it make sense though, I have to go back a ways . . . all the way back to December 24th and the beginning of some hard things that made the good things at the end all the more appreciated.

Here we are, Christmas Eve 2023.

Not really wishing for adventure but about to go on one nonetheless. About to take flight from Oregon to Missouri to celebrate Christmas with the rest of the Baers. We were somewhat trepidatious about the whole thing, especially since our last experience flying with all three boys was not just the best one, but our tickets were bought, and our massive suitcase was packed, and off we went. ...continue reading →

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How do three little boys celebrate Christmas? In many ways, but here's how mine have done it in the first five days of December. 🙂

December 1st: Their mother turned on the first Christmas music of the season, and it was glorious. Sebastian didn't even remember how much he had liked With Bells On the year before and was happily reintroduced.

December 2nd: They went to A Christmas Puppet Show at church. There was popcorn afterward, and cupcakes, and a bounce house, and ornament-making. Alec especially was in his element and came home with this funny little ornament. ...continue reading →

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Last year I was so excited for Christmas. My blog and my life were chock-full of it.

This year, not so much. I’ve gone through the motions, more for my boys than anything, but none of it has felt very special. We hung up some lights, we got our Christmas tree, we baked the dreaded sugar cookies. We wrapped gifts, and we revisited our Luke 2 memorization.

All without the sparkle that it held last year.

Thank goodness then that there is more to Christmas than the sparkle. ...continue reading →

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For all my excitement about decorating for Christmas this year, it sure was a long time in coming. I wanted to wait until after Thanksgiving to do it, but we were sick over Thanksgiving. Then suddenly every nook and cranny of the house needed to be cleaned, both as part of my fall cleaning (which always seems to stretch into winter cleaning) and also in preparation for our Christmas company (some of which is coming this weekend and some of which is coming next weekend), and somewhere amid the dusting and the scrubbing and the happily filling of Goodwill boxes, the decorating just fell by the wayside.

If you managed to get through that entire extraordinarily long and clumsy sentence, here’s what got my Christmas decorating finally back on track.A cheap little poinsettia from Waremart. My mom almost always has a poinsettia at Christmas, and since it’s such a cheery, decorative flower in and of itself, I usually can’t resist getting one either. ...continue reading →