We had the most peaceful and restful Christmas season ever this year. We were blessed to be able to spend a lot of time together as a family and just take it really easy. It was truly the most wonderful Christmas we have ever had. Here are a few highlights:
For us, the Christmas season starts with the choir practices for Handel’s “Messiah”, with the Alabama Civic Chorale. This year, I convinced Mama and Matthew to sing with me!
We practiced each week at a lovely church, and as we got a little closer, we had the opportunity to go sing at the shopping mall and on the local news:
I did a dress mini-session of my recital dress before the actual performance. I thought it might be fun to try, so I did!
This is a photo of Mama and I just before the performance:
This was my second time to have the opportunity to study and sing Handel’s “Messiah”. This year, like last, I found myself fighting tears at the end. It is such an incredible way to memorize scripture and have the opportunity to present the gospel to people who might not hear or read it otherwise. I find myself praying in the weeks leading up to the performance that we might be a light to the folks coming to hear it. I know many come simply because it’s their Christmas tradition, but they are still being presented with the gospel message. It is absolutely incredible. I’m so blessed to have the opportunity, and am thankful the Lord swung those doors open for my family and I.
As the days continued onward, we started doing many of our annual traditions.
I went and cleared out the local Dollar General’s stock of eggnog. Because eggnog, right?
Then it was time to start putting up the décor. We actually did most of the outside stuff first. Matthew and I took care of the bulk of it. I guess you can say we were the “lighting engineers”.
And then, it was time to do the inside.
We actually rearranged the entire back room of our house so that we would have a nice place to sit and watch sappy Hallmark movies. Because sappy Hallmark movies. =D
Here are some of the other highlights:
My parents give us a commemorative Christmas ornament each year. This was mine for this year:
Of course, I would be neglecting so much if I failed to give a hat tip to the Christmas parades. This year, we participated in all three of the Christmas parades, which means I have driven a parade float four times in two years. If we do all three again this year, I’ll have driven the parade float seven times in three years. It’s kinda thrilling!! =D
First things first….making the big heads:
Mounting Snoopy:
Then there’s rewiring the trailer:
Getting folks sat down and ready to ride:
It was a little odd to be perfectly comfortable in a short-sleeve shirt for the final two parades. Just saying.
Here’s a quick video of the float riders in action!
We really enjoyed getting to do that again. 🙂
Life started to calm back down post-parades. Now it was time for music practice:
Realizing we made the paper for the 2nd year straight:
Oh, and trying to keep Jackson from opening all of the presents. At the time, I had the entire action assembly out of our Story and Clark piano, so there was quite a bit of extra space. I realized we could hide the majority of the presents inside of the piano, and he wouldn’t be able to get to them!
We had a couple of creepy appearances from Elf:
And I loved making personalized homemade gifts for everyone this year. Some were made while watching sappy Hallmark movies (I’m starting to notice a theme here…)
Others were made where time permitted, and everything was made from things already on hand here.
And this was a favorite thing I made. This was for Mama….it’s the Lambert family as a pod o’ peas!!
Here’s everything wrapped up and pretty:
Christmas dinner….need I say more.
Daddy said we got to leave the decorations up until New Year’s this time, which was really nice. We were sad to see them come down. I think we are finally, finally coming up with where each thing should go permanently, so between that and the very detailed packing we did last year, we had everything up in less than two days- a record!
To finish this out, my dad makes a “look back” video each year, and shows it on Christmas Day. This video is just a few of the highlights from the year, so that we can look back and reflect on all that God has done through the year. It’s always fun to see the different places we’ve went, the different things we’ve done, how much the kids have grown from the previous year, etc. I’m thankful Daddy is skilled in this area and can share that gift with us. It has become a special legacy.
Well, I’m still working on catching everything up, so there will be more postings over the next few days. It’s been a “happening” several weeks around here! =]