Christmas 2009

We have been trying for several years now to decommercialize the Christmas our family celebrates. We have made some strides in this direction, although realize that we have a LONG way to go. This year we celebrated Advent, the waiting for the Messiah, with several service projects and opportunities. We made cookies for teachers, neighbors, friends, and kids at Project Reach Youth. We bought canned goods for Feed Just One/CHIPS soup kitchen, we bought hats, scarves, and gloves for men who frequent a soup kitchen in Sunset Park, we bought hats, scarves, gloves, and socks for kids at Project Reach Youth, and we wrapped 40 packages for kids at this same program. We also served at Camp Friendships/Chips Charitable Holiday Dinner ... carving turkeys, pouring coffee, greeting those who came, cleaning up spills, and clearing tables. We desire to make it a top priority in our family to serve and love together while at the same time remembering the love and mercy and hope we celebrate at Christmastime. This is the 3rd year our family has decided to downsize the amount of gifts we give to one another and purchase an animal through Heifer International instead. This year we bought a water buffalo, cause nothing says I love you like a water buffalo. This water buffalo will bring valuable resources to a family in the Philippines. We are so thankful that God has blessed us in so many ways and are so grateful that we can share this blessing in this way. But, as I said, we are still a long way from where we want to be in the decommercialization of this very special celebration. Together we hope to continue making changes in the way we view Christmas and the way we celebrate Christmas.

That said, we still gave gifts to the girls, one of the best gifts, in our girls minds and ours, that we were able to share with each other this year was tickets to the Lion King on Broadway. We are all definitely looking forward to this experience at the end of January.

We were thankful this year to be able to celebrate Christmas with most of my family at Thanksgiving time and to share Christmas with Brad's parents on Christmas Day and the few days following. Thanks to everyone who made the trek to visit us this year!