Merry Christmas!

I hope all who read this blog had a very Merry Christmas this year!

We spent Christmas Eve with our church family celebrating our Savior's birth. The church service was one of my favorite Christmas Eve services yet, featuring songs from Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb of God, and of course, songs sung by our church's very cute, lovable, and entertaining children. Most of all, it is a highlight of mine to worship the Lord for giving up his majestic throne in heaven and being born a lowly man all so that he could rescue lost sinners. We have an amazing God, and Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year to celebrate all that he is. It is always difficult not to become distracted by the cares and responsibilities of life during this season, but by God's grace, I hope I was able to at least come back to a place where I could remember the true reason for the season, and also to reflect that truth to Claire.

After church Christmas Eve and all day Christmas day was spent with family who we love so very much! It can be a full and exhausting 24 hours, but I am so thankful that we can see our family that we love very much for Christmas.

Oh...Christmas Tree

I know most of you probably think this post will include a beautiful picture of a Christmas tree all decorated for Christmas. Well, our tree this year came home last Saturday, became beautifully arranged with Christmas lights and ornaments by Tuesday, and completely undecorated and taken out with the trash on Sunday. The poor tree died only days after being brought home. We would be sitting on the couch and could hear the needles dropping to the floor. My parents went to the same Christmas tree farm they always go to, cut it down themselves, re-cut the bottom off of the tree as soon as they got home and put it in water immediately. Sounds like they did everything right...? Oh well, the only thing I can think of is that Claire and I couldn't go along this year to get it, so now maybe we'll get a second chance. We'll all get a second chance to arrange lights and ornaments. :) Seriously, it is fun the first time, but the second time...??? It kind of gets old. I feel bad for my parents, though, who did the most work already by cutting down the first one, putting it up, decorating, taking it down, cleaning up all of the needles, etc. Hopefully we'll have success with Tree No. 2, which the Christmas tree farm is giving us free of charge.