Christmas Day 2009

I'll let the pictures tell the story of our day.






Favorite gifts from Santa:






Ok, so I'll explain the last one. It's red & green scrambled eggs. The colors are 'off' in the picture! They really were red& green! We had those with sausage & biscuits for supper tonight!

Christmas Eve

What a full, but fabulous(!) day we've had!

At 8:00AM, we reported to our bell ringing station at WalMart. Since we had to be there by 7:50-ish, we made a quick stop through the local donut shop drive-thru on the way. Yum! Pigs in a blanket for breakfast! (The kids had donuts...gotta get that sugar buzz!) We spent two hours ringing the bell & people watching. It's always encouraging to see how many people stop & talk to the kids & pat them on the back for doing something positive. I love to see the kids give of their time for something imporant like this, but to have other people tell them that is great!


Today, I do believe we saw a few people who'd qualify for this site. I didn't take any pictures, though. After all, I was there to collect money for a good cause. It wouldn't have looked very nice for me to be snapping pictures of odd people.

Upon our return from WalMart, I made a quick trip to our local discount store. It's kind of like a dollar store, but things aren't $1. I don't know if they're a nationwide chain or not, but the store is called Fred's. I had to pick up the last couple of items needed for tomorrow's birthday party celebration. When I checked out, the cashier said "I guess someone has a birthday close to Christmas!". I just nodded & said "Yes, Jesus!". She kind of rolled her eyes, but the lady behind me in line piped up & asked about the party plates & napkins & such. I shared about our Christmas morning tradition and she loved it. Even if the cashier thought it was silly, I'm glad to be able to point out the one whose birthday we celebrate. How fortunate we are to live in a country where we can say things about Him in public.


Back at home, we made Jesus's birthday cake and had lunch. I attempted a nap, but it didn't happen. Too many doors being knocked on, phones ringing, etc. Oh well. I tried.


The biggest "thing" of the day (at least for the kids) was this: it snowed! Sure, it was just flurries & it only lasted maybe an hour. But wow...snow on Christmas Eve in Texas. That NEVER happens!


Tonight we went to our church for a non-traditional Christmas Eve service. I think most churches who have a Christmas Eve service do something along the lines of candlelit hymn-singing, reverant prayer time, etc. Or perhaps this is the time for Christmas musicals by the choir. Whatever the case, tonight our church did something different. We are blessed to be a part of an amazing church who really endeavor to reach the community & the world. A couple of weeks ago, we were given a wish list for several local charities/mission groups (Salvation Army, PATH, Living Alternatives, etc). Tonight we were asked to bring our gifts to the manger. Our church's stage had a small manger set up with a (doll) baby Jesus in it. The lights were dimmed and we were directed to place our gifts at the altar & spend a few moments praying for the organizations we were donating to, for our families, for those who are spending their Christmas alone, etc.

I realize it's hard to see in this pic, but if you click on it & blow it up maybe you can see things better. This is the stage in our sanctuary. The entire stage is covered in gifts!


The next station of the service was individual communion tables where each family could stand, read the Scriptures about communion (which were on the table, printed ahead of time) and then take the elements as a family. Very reverant & beautiful!


After giving your gifts, prayer & communion, you could leave or take a seat and watch a looped video of music set to scenes from The Nativity Story movie. Such a sweet time of worship & giving.

Larry & I were so moved. It didn't take a ton of money for the church to provide this time. The members were encouraged to give. Nothing flashy went on, but it was one of the most moving things we've done for Christmas in years as far as church services go. Just goes to show that it doesn't take a grand gesture to please Him. I am honored that we were able to go & focus on Him tonight as a family.

We drove home & enjoyed a movie & cocoa before the kids hit the beds. What a great day. I can't wait for tomorrow!!

Christmas Traditions at the Reeves house

Over on Facebook, several friends have been asking for their friends to post Christmas traditions their family shares. We do so many fun things at our house that I wanted to share! And so, without further adieu:

1. Most years, we take the kids to an angel tree & find 3 angels of the same genders as the kids who are roughly the same age. We let the kids help us shop for those children. It's so much fun to see them getting excited about giving!

2. Samaritan's Purse, Operation Christmas Child: read more about it here. Again, this is something we do to help our kids learn the importance of giving. We love the challenge of filling a shoebox with as many things as we can cram into it. Our box is usually about to pop by the time we turn it in. So much fun!

3. Salvation Army bell ringing! When you read up on all the many many things that the SA does, it becomes such a privelege to be a part of this important ministry. I would love to see the SA offer some sort of bell ringing/collecting for the poor year-round. I guess people would get tired of seeing the red kettles outside store doors, though. Maybe the novelty of the bell ringing ministry is that you can only do it from Thanksgiving til Christmas. Anyway...we take the family & ring the bell for the SA each year. We only started this tradition last year, but it's such a neat thing. The kids LOVE it. Savannah makes it her goal to say hi & bye to EVERY person who walks by. I guess she's our PR person! :) Samuel does his best to ring the bell near his sisters' ears & pester them anytime he's got the bell. Sarah just smiles & waves to everyone as they go by. Larry and I stand back & grin a lot. It's fun to see the reactions that people have to CHILDREN ringing the bell. It's also fun to people-watch. You might be surprised by who is the most generous! Last year, while ringing the bell, Larry & I both noticed that the most generous givers were the people we least expected to see stop at all. Sure is a good reminder not to judge a book by its cover!

4. Baking/icing cookies together. The kids & I buy those packages of pre-cut sugar cookie dough & bake them. (Honestly, they only want to decorate them, so cutting down on the mixing & baking & cutting time suits me just fine.) Aside from being really silly while decorating them, we get the added benefit of eating them!!

5. In years past, we've helped in serving a meal to the homeless. Such a cool way for the kids to see, face to face, that there are indeed homeless people living RIGHT HERE.

6. Driving around & looking at lights. We make it our mission to find the most gaudy, tacky displays each year. We have a saying in the car while we're driving around looking for it, too...that is, "Money can't buy class!". I can't believe how many years the tackiest displays are in the fanciest neighborhoods. Complete with 3 inflatables, 2 snowglobes, reindeer on the roof, Santa on a Harley, the "flowing" river of lights in the yard....you get the idea. That one is the winner!

7. A few weeks in advance, when we're in the car & the kids get rowdy, we start a game. I usually go first by humming/whistling the tune to a Christmas song. The first one to guess which song it is gets to go next. It continues on for a long time because everyone wants to get several turns.

8. Canned food drives! By Christmas, we're usually totally stripped of canned goods in our pantry. Between the schools & church & other community food drives, it's fun to see how many cans of food we can give. This year, Samuel's teachers organized a night for the kids in their classes to meet at the school & drive around the local neighborhoods going door to door to collect food. It was so much fun to see the grins & hear the giggles as the kids piled back into the car with ONE can of green beans or a couple cans of soup! I love seeing them get excited about helping someone else!

9. Giggle & Spit
Yeah, you read that right. If you read my blog last year on Christmas Eve, you heard about this & saw pictures. (Feel free to dig back through the archives if you missed it.) The idea behind this game (it's called Giggle & Spit) is that you have 1 person who's "it". The rest of the group gets a big mouthful of water & holds a towel. The person who is "it" has to say/do/act funny, telling jokes, dancing silly...whatever it takes...to make the others laugh. Whoever laughs (& therefore spits the water out--onto the towel!) is the new "it" and the game begins again. It's hilarious!

10. We have a very BIG birthday party for Jesus on Christmas morning. Our 'rule' in our house is that the kids aren't allowed to go into the living room (where the gifts & Santa stuff is) until AFTER our party (we do it in one of their bedrooms). The idea behind that is that they focus on the reason we are celebrating this special day BEFORE we dive into piles of wrapping paper & bows & boxes. The first year we did this, I wasn't sure if they'd just 'tolerate' the party time in order to get to the gifts, but it turns out that they LOVE IT. In fact, it's grown each year. We've added new layers to the party. It's grown from just singing Happy Birthday to Jesus & reading the Bible story to a full-fledged, all out party! We bake a cake on Christmas Eve & decorate it. We have candles & party hats & noise makers & party plates/napkins. We take pictures & act silly and have a blast, as if Jesus was physically in the room with us to celebrate His birthday. After we have cake (for breakfast!) and party it up, we read the Bible story (Luke 2). This year, we're adding a new layer to that. Samuel has asked if he can read the story. Before we agreed to that, the girls were asking if they can do it next year and the year after. Looks like we're going to have an annual fuss over who gets to read the story of the birth of Jesus now! How fun is that?!

11. Christmas movies! There are several movies that we watch EVERY year. The original animated version of The Grinch & Elf are at the top of that list. Then we enjoy lots of family nights where we pop popcorn & watch other movies together. This year, ABC Family did a cool thing. Beginning on the night after T'giving, they've played a different Christmas movie every night. We've watched a lot of those!

12. We have a few special snacks/treats that we only make at Christmastime. We love Puppy Chow & rainbow bark. Yum yum! In addition to those things, we usually spend more time than usual in the chairs of local restaurants. We are blessed to do that by my students at school. A common Christmas gift for me is gift cards to local places, so we get to enjoy those special treats while the kids are out of school for the holidays!

13. That brings me to our last 'tradition' of sorts. I'm thinking of tweaking this one next year...I'll explain that in a minute. I'm not sure if this really counts as 'tradition' or not, but anyway, we don't go very crazy on gifts. Our family members get very minimal gifts costing no more than $10 each. On both sides of our family, it's gotten to be too costly to buy for *everyone*. We don't buy for any of the adults on my side of the family. And because there are so many kids, we draw names & only buy for a few of the kids. We have birthdays to spoil them if you missed buying for a neice or nephew at Christmas time. The adults don't swap gifts at all. On Larry's side of the family, the gifts are small & simple. The kids get fun stuff, but our get together is about spending time together, not focusing on presents! In our home, the kids get "matching" gifts, meaning each one of them gets the same basic items (but specific to them). This year, each one of them got 1 $10 gift card to a store we know they'll enjoy, 1 pkg of socks & 1 pkg of underwear, 1 DVD, 1 CD & a new set of pajamas. Santa brings things that are only slightly more "fun" than mom & dad. You know...magazines, toys, things that particular child would enjoy.

I've heard from several friends over the past few years about a new thing that I think we may do next year. Because Jesus only got 3 gifts (gold, frankenscence & myrrh), they only give their children 3 gifts. They can spend slightly more than usual on those 3 gifts because there are only three things. I like that. We may do it next year.


I know there are more things, but I'm drawing a blank & beginning to get sleepy. If I think of others, I'll come back & edit this post later. Comment with some of your family's traditions! I'd love to hear them!

Boy are we righteous!

Over the course of the past several days I've been tossing around some thoughts in my mind. I haven't verbalized them yet, so you're the first to hear of this. (Well, figuratively....I'm sure that SOMEONE has to be the first one to read this post.)

You see, all my friends (and myself, I'm not singling anyone out!) have been spending lots of time in these past few weeks doing service projects. I love that! I love seeing families working together to meet the needs of less fortunate families at Christmastime. I love seeing husbands & wives ringing the bell for the Salvation Army together. I love hearing about children giving of their own things for the sake of another child who doesn't have as much. I enjoy hearing about families who make an effort to make Christmas about something more than "gimme gimme". I applaud those efforts. Please don't misunderstand me, those are fantastic things!

But it's got me to wondering......how much of this do we do for ourselves? I mean, if we really care & want to help the less fortunate, why aren't we doing this year-round? Do all the homeless people magically find homes on December 26th? Do the hungry people who come to soup kitchens during the holidays have food when March rolls around? Do the children whose parents can't afford to buy Christmas gifts have enough to cover their birthday in May? What about all those food banks that we stock up during the holidays? Do they have enough to fill the bellies of the hungry people in July? All the blankets & coats & warm socks sure do help in the winter, but what about shorts & flip flops & fans in August?

Do we do our fill of "good deeds" during the holidays so that we can live the rest of the year without feeling the need to help? To serve? To give? Does it somehow give us permission to be gluttonous, living lives of luxury from January through October?

James 1:27 tells us that "Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you." Of course, I think that it goes beyond widows & orphans, as well. Who can you serve this coming year?

'Tis the season...

This week has held a plethora of emotions, events & pride for me. I'm sure we can all relate to the events thing at this time of year, so I'll stick with the pride & emotions stuff!

Pride & emotions story #1:
About a month ago, Sarah brought home a CD of the 3rd grade Christmas musical. She began listening to it, learning the songs & speaking parts for the whole play, just getting a feel for the show. They had auditions at school & the music teacher allowed the kids to select parts they were interested in, but she also had them read for parts that she thought would be a good fit for them. Sarah told me that she auditioned for a couple of parts, but she really didn't want to get a big part. (The music teacher had her read a few of them.)

She has the most tender heart & the most soft-spirited personality of all my kids. She certainly warms up to people once she gets to know them, but overall, she is very shy & mild-mannered. She doesn't like to be in the spotlight and doesn't like to disappoint others. When she was younger, she would literally cry in embarassment if she walked into the room & you acknowledged her too loudly. She's such a people-pleaser and a self-inflicted perfectionist. On the day that she climbed into the van after school & started crying right off the bat, I knew what had happened. She got the lead role, Mrs. Claus! She was mortified that she'd mess up, forget a line, not do a good job....or worse, stage fright! She *just knew* that she'd get on stage & completely panic & she was terrified that she'd be standing at the microphone & cry in front of the whole crowd. As her mother, I wanted to run to the school & tell the music teacher that she'd have to pick someone else for the part. But I stopped myself. I KNEW that if she could pull it off, having this part would do WONDERS for her self confidence. So before we got upset & called the school, she & I sat down with the script & ran through it. Interestingly enough, on the day she was assigned her part, she ALREADY knew every single one of her lines!! Realizing that, she relaxed a little & found new things to panic about, like whether or not she would look silly in a granny costume? ha ha! I spent a ton of time praying for her nerves, for her courage, for her faith in the teachers & the work she'd put into this play. And ya know what?

SHE ROCKED THE HOUSE TUESDAY NIGHT!!!!!!!!!

Not only did she NOT forget a single line in the play, she did just fine on her short solo & she smiled & looked like she was enjoying it!!! She got a ton of compliments after the play, too!! I'm sure you can imagine how proud we were! Seeing HER smile after the play was worth all the tears & worrying & prayers in advance. Here are a few shots of our little superstar.

This is the costume she wore. My mom made it.

At the microphone for one of her speaking parts.



After the play, with her buddy Madison.

Santa had to be convinced to "go green" in the play. During the final song, they switched costumes. Very cute!

Pride & emotions story #2:
Tonight, the reality that my children are about to get out of school for the holidays hit like a ton of bricks. While I really do enjoy being with my kiddos, they don't always enjoy being with each other. Primarily the oldest & middle child. The term "Cats & Dogs" most readily jumps to my lips. We are working a lot on kindness & watching our tongues lately....or rather, I'm TRYING to get them to work on kindness & holding their tongues. There are days, though, when I wonder if they hear anything I say. Needless to say, it makes the prospect of 2 weeks at home together a little less appealing with tempers are high & attitudes are quickly gaining new levels of yucky-ness!

I needed to run to McDonald's tonight to buy two $5 gift cards for Samuel & Sarah to give at their class parties tomorrow. Savannah is capable of staying home alone for a few minutes (McDonald's is less than 5 minutes from my house), so I let her hang out while I went. Sarah decided she wanted to stay home with her since they were watching something on TV. I had NO intention of leaving Savannah & Samuel under the same roof without some supervision, so I took Samuel with me. Having JUST broken up a giant argument between the two of them, I figured it was good to give them both some cooling off time as well. Samuel grunted & groaned & stomped on his way to the van. As we were getting into the van, he & I started talking. The conversation went something like this.

Me: Samuel, you need to stop stomping your feet & acting ugly. This bad attitude needs to GO.
Samuel: (gruffly) Then tell Savannah to stop being mean to me.
Me: She is inside the house & you are out here. Whatever SHE is doing does not effect your behavior out HERE. You make the choice to be a snot out here. So, drop the attitude.
Samuel: grumble, grumble
Me: Sam, I don't like this stinky boy you've been lately. Could you please drop the bad attitude & bring back a nice one? I don't want the stinky boy as my son.
Samuel: softer grumblings
Me: Ahem...Yes M'am?
Samuel: Yes M'am.
(We sat in silence for a while. I heard him sniffling a few times, so I knew he was thinking & crying quietly. After a little while, he said...)
Samuel: Why does the Bible say to treat other people the way you want to be treated?
Me: Because those are God's words & it's how we're supposed to act.
Samuel: But Savannah doesn't do that!
Me: You're right. Sometimes she doesn't. But you can't control Savannah. You have to control YOUR behavior & actions. If you want her to treat you nicely, you need to treat her nicely.
Samuel: You need to tell HER that.
Me: Samuel, first of all you need to be careful how you talk to me. And second, I *DID* tell her that. She & I had this very conversation last night. That was between she & I and it's none of your business. If she chooses to act rudely, that is between she & I. YOU need to act nice regardless of her behavior.
Samuel: But I'm just treating her the way she's treating me.
Me: Yeah, I have seen that. But one of you has to be the "big kid" & make the choice to treat the other nicely even if they're not being nice.
Samuel: She's mean to me though!
Me: Yes...but sometimes she's just responding to the way you treat her. If you treat her kindly, she will treat you kindly.
(Things got quiet again.......we went into McD's & got the 2 cards. While we were there, I decided to surprise him with a drink. He went over & filled his cup with Sprite. He doesn't usually drink Sprite, but I assumed he was just in the mood for something different.)
Me: Sprite?
Samuel: Yes. Can you hand me 2 straws?
Me: Two?
Samuel: yes.
(So I handed him two. He banged one on the counter & put it into his cup & took a drink, then banged the other one out of its wrapper & put it into the cup, too.)
Me: Samuel, why do you need 2 straws?
Samuel: Savannah likes Sprite, too.

I got down on my knees in McDonald's to be eye-level with him & gave him a big hug and told him how proud I was that he was making an effort to do something nice for her, right in the middle of a time when he was feeling mad & hurt by her. He just smiled. And while I sat at the table & waited when he went to the bathroom, I thanked God for showing me that he really did "get it" tonight. Tomorrow might be a whole different story, but tonight, he GOT IT.

Book Review: Let Go by Sheila Walsh

Several months ago when I finished reading my last review book, I was given the option to receive a new book & I selected this one. To be quite honest, I've listened to Sheila Walsh speak at Women of Faith conferences for the past several years and while I've always LOVED her, I have only read (part of) one of her other books. I wasn't all that impressed with that one & gave up before I finished it, so I was curious to see if this book would be different. After reading this book, I have to assume that when I read the last book, I must've not been in the right place in my life to "get" what the book was about because this book, Let Go, was simply amazing!

Sheila has the appearance, at the WOF conferences, of being a high class lady who would never understand my world. But every year when she steps onto the stage & opens her mouth, she immediately speaks into the depths of my heart. In this book, she does the same thing! While the book is advertised as being for women, I found that much of the book could apply to either sex. Sheila tackles burdens that we place on ourselves & reminds us of the depth of Christ's love for us. While not removing those burdens, getting a new perspective on them can certainly help. And with Sheila's words of great compassion and grace, tenderness & wisdom, it is easy to see why she is a best-selling author & amazing speaker.

I've found that in her speaking as well as this book, she can tell a story very specific to her own life while speaking very intimately to mine. She is a gifted lady with a heart for communicating the truth of God's heart to us, the readers. I highly recommend this book.

I am a book review blogger for Thomas Nelson Publishing Company. You can learn more about the program here: http://brb.thomasnelson.com/.

Sure enough...

Just as I suspected, Samuel has strep throat. Ugh. I'm staying home with him tomorrow and if he's still running fever by tomorrow afternoon (thus requiring a 2nd day at home), grandma has offered to let him come hang out at her house Tuesday. Yahoo! Go Grandma! :)