Last night

Last night was out traditional tree-decorating family night. Mama spent most of the day preparing the finger foods that was to be our dinner. We had thin strips of steak, rosemary cheese croquet things served with marinara sauce, sweet and spicy nuts, pitted dates filled with feta cheese and smoked almonds, calzone pinwheels, mini spinach and feta quiches, Cabot cheese and crackers, roasted garlic, apples and dulce de leche, fudge, peanut brittle, gingerbread lattes, and mulled apple cider!!! Abundance! Elvis, Amy Grant, and Twila Paris were singing Christmas songs. There was a fire in the fire place; the stockings were hung. To top it all off, we had Luke to keep us excited (if a little frustrated occasionally)! The setting was perfect. Luke hung nearly every ornament on the tree, and, for once, we managed to have a tree that doesn't necessarily look overloaded! The size and stability of the tree itself prevented many of the ornaments from being hung up. According to another tradition, and upon Luke's insistence, we four kids slept in the living room with the newly-decorated tree.

Christmas preparations

Yesterday we all went hiking through our woods searching for just the right "Charlie Brown Christmas Tree" for our living room.

I think we did pretty well!

Daddy and Kyle got it up and put the lights on it last night. We'll do our traditional finger-food-dinner, tree decorating tonight. There's quite a bit more prep work put into a finger food meal than I realized! Mama's been working on that most of the morning. Kyle and Luke built a fire, and Claire's been playing Christmas music on the piano. I think we're getting into the whole spirit of things again.

A few things

This morning the pastures in front of our house were black! I stepped out on the front porch to check it out, and could hardly hear myself think. Apparently, a flock birds had chosen our area as a migratory "rest area." I love being outside when so many birds are here; it's so amazing! When they would all start up to move to the next spot their take-off sounded like a turkey drumming. It's a powerful sound. Watching that sort of thing always brings the greatness of the Lord to the very front of my mind.

I tried playing my mandolin again recently, hoping it wouldn't bother my wrists. It did. After playing it again, though, I am continually longing to pick it up! I can think of so many excuses to play it: it needs playing so that the it will keep a tune! My fingers will completely forget everything I worked so hard on! I think it's probably best that I don't play it though. :(

Is it really December? It's over 70° outside! What's with that?!? It looks like it'll get colder as the week progresses though. I think Kyle and Luke are going to go up on the mountain to find us a cedar tree that we'll cut down next week. We usually have live Christmas trees, but it should be fun having a tree that we harvested off our own land. According to our long-standing tradition, we'll have tons of finger foods and have Christmas music playing the evening we decorate it.

In the mood

Trans-Siberian Orchestra! I love instrumental Carol of the Bells!

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Is it weird that, last night at dinner, we discussed what desserts we absolutely have to have this Christmas season?

• Spritz cookies
• Pecan pie
• Peanut brittle
• Fudge
• Half-moon cookies

"These are a few of my favorite things..."

That's just what we immediately came up with; I'm sure we'll find some others to add to that list.

"It's just a family tradition!"

Last night was the Hanging of the Greens service at Centertown United Methodist Church. As I mentioned in the previous post, Claire and I were a part of it. I think we performed okay, better than I expected really. Just a couple of days ago we had almost no voice!

Many churches hold a service of preparation for Christ's coming, which includes hanging greenery traditionally associated with everlasting life. Greens such as cedar for royalty, fir and pine boughs for everlasting life, holly symbolizing Jesus' death and ivy representing the resurrection are used.
--- UMC "What is Hanging of the Greens?"

It has started...

Yes, "It's that time again!" We watched "Charlie Brown Christmas" during lunch this afternoon. Did you know that he says "y'all"? That's this year's CBC observation.

Claire has started playing Christmas music almost more than any other genre; she did figure out a couple of chords from "Gone" (Montgomery Gentry) this afternoon though.