Another Christmas has come and gone. I had mixed feelings about it this year. What I wanted to give to people we couldn’t afford, but I think we managed pretty good considering. The calendar that I got my parents didn’t turn out as well as I had wanted, so hopefully next year we can afford to use Shutterfly again because their product is so much better than Costco’s or Staples. My family loves the presents and my parents go a little overboard (not complaining). We don’t make a big deal about the birth of Christ on Christmas because we celebrate Jesus all year round. I am not sure if Jesus/God cares too much if we make a big deal of it anyway especially if we “celebrate” him all year round. From what I gather, it isn’t his actual birthday anyway, so let’s call it Christmas and celebrate Santa Claus LOL. Maybe we should pull out the story of Mary and Joseph sometime during the year and just appreciate the sacrifice that God did by sending his son. Let’s put the story in perspective…
Jesus is sitting in Heaven, minding everyone’s business…sitting nicely at the right hand of God. He is organizing the choir, finding a place for Elton John to someday be the pianist (I can hope can’t I?), and just chatting with everyone around him…then God (his daddy) says to his son…”son, I have a job for you”…never words you want to hear from a father no matter if you are a spiritual being or human form. Let’s assume he agrees (and isn’t told he has to do it)…and suddenly…poof…his spiritual being self get’s plopped into baby form and is stuck in a uterus for 9ish months and then has to start his human form life from a tiny screaming baby, through childhood, teenage hood and then an adult. Can you imagine?!?! Having the perfect life in Heaven and then having to join us here on earth in this very warped place? What a shock and probably a bit of an adjustment. It is because of that transition though that we know he understands what we are going through. All the heartache, tears, disappointments and sorrows…he knows it all. It is what I cling to in these dark hours. It isn’t just me who goes through all this crap…even Jesus went through it all, and he had a pretty good life before he had to go through it all.
We celebrate the birth of Christ on Christmas, but really, we celebrate that it was the start of him truly understanding what we go through living on this earth. So we don’t need to just take one day a year to celebrate his birth, we can take any day of the year and celebrate the fact that Jesus knows how we feel. He made the ultimate sacrifice for us and it started out as a promise in the Old Testament and finally was a reality when he was conceived.
So on that note, I will tell you how our Christmas goes because we love to celebrate the spirit of giving (and receiving) of presents, the company of family and the joy of eating. Our day started on Christmas eve…after Doug’s work, we headed to my parents place. Once we got there we settled into our bedroom and made some Kona coffee and got ready to visit. For dinner we had stir fry (very traditional you know). 
Then we got to open up our stockings. My parents love to stuff them full and we had lots of fun seeing what kind of neat little things we got. I got gum, lip chap, batteries, lamp, stuffy toy, Purdy’s peanut butter bar (sugar free) and a few other little things. We finally went to bed around 10ish because having a 2 and a 4 year old in the house makes everyone very tired. They tend to get up early in the morning. We made plans with Jos, Andrea and Owen for them to get there at 8:30am the next morning.
Christmas morning…we got up around 7:30 and started the coffee, the fire place, etc. By 8:30 the VanSantens had arrived with the traditional (sort of) dutch breakfast fixings. They got it all ready and I think by around 9:30am, we were getting ready to open presents. A few people will get up and hand out all the presents. 
When all the presents have been handed out, then we all get to open them. You land up not being able to see the floor because of all the wrapping paper and stuff. Those are the days I miss Louie…he loved to tear up balls of wrapping paper. After everything is opened, we go and have breaky. It is always tasty…gouda cheese, ham, buns, almond cookies, stolen, crunchy biscuits that you put chocolate sprinkles on, and if you can find it, raisin bread. Once breakfast is done, then some of us go back to our presents and play with them. There was a lot of lego this year as presents, so it came out fairly quickly and got built. I was able to scrapbook some pages (including the Christmas pics) and managed to get about 8 pages done. My sister brought her laptop along and did some scrapbooking too. For dinner we had ham, mashed pototes, vegies, apple sauce, pickles and gravy. For dessert it was 4% cottage cheese (the best in the world) and fruit. All in all, it was a very nice cozy Christmas Day with family. I stayed in my pj’s all day which is always fun.
So as you can see, we enjoyed our Christmas. We still have my mom’s side of the family Christmas party to go to on Friday and then it will be 2013 next week. I am so happy that 2012 is over and I am really hoping that 2013 will be so much better. We celebrate 25 years of marriage next year, so we hope to have a little gathering to celebrate that.
Merry Christmas everyone and have a Happy New Year