A Bundle of Myrrh

Christmas Eve Day was spent getting ready for Christmas Day. Lily helped me make Sausage Casserole Breakfast that will be ready to pop in the oven in the morning.

And I made a chocolate-chocolate cake to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus and because it sounded like the best thing to eat on Christmas day.

The winter storm started moving in this morning and worsened as the day went on. As a result all our church services were canceled. Phil got to spend the evening at home after all!

After pajama time I wanted to get a few more pictures of the girls in front of the tree. Again the results were well, not great.

Phil wanted us to each opened one gift tonight.

That cheered Lily up once it was her turn. We read to the girls from Luke 2, sang Silent Night (hoping for one) and sent them to bed. Tomorrow should be a lot of fun!

After a big pout yesterday, I’m feeling better today. Thanks for the condolences! Rebekah sure is right, I have to remember, Christmas is indeed different for a pastor’s family! But while that’s true and we won’t see much of Daddy on Christmas Eve, there are benefits of being Pastor’s family in a church with such thoughtful members. We have received so many nice cards, gifts for the girls, a fruit basket, cookies and gift cards to our town pub. I’m very thankful that our people think about us during this time and are so appreciative of all Phil does here. It reminds me that we are here for a reason and as difficult as it gets sometimes we are so blessed to be here and to be a part of what the Lord wants Phil to continue doing here…though, yes Heidi, sometimes a call to Texas doesn’t sound so bad. And being able to iChat with my family on Christmas day will be very good. Can you believe people used to only be able to talk on the phone?! Weird.

We also received another package from Tx today, full of fun things! I couldn’t help but let the girls have a few of them a little early. I hid everything else.

Such a cute hat, leg warmers and an alligator!

Oh, and it’s snowing…lots. Looks like we’ll definitely be having a very very white Christmas!

Here’s my futile attempt at getting a picture of the girls under our tree. These first two were the best I could get.

Lily wouldn’t put Clara’s bloomers down for anything so they made it in some of the pictures. Aren’t they nice?

Clara wanted to eat the camera so I gave her a block as a compromise. It’s kind of like a camera.

I think I’ll try again tomorrow when Phil can help out or better, sit in the picture with them.

After this “photo shoot” and lunch with our church secretary who told us that her family would be getting together to make cookies and play games on Christmas Eve I was feeling pretty down. As two of my favorite days of the year approach it gets a little harder to be cheerful. The best part of Christmas is of course celebrating the birth of our Savior Jesus who put on human flesh for us in order to die for our sins but it’s also such a nice time just to be with family. As I’ve said before I’m so thankful to have my own little family now and that does make it easier to not be able to get home for Christmas in some ways, but it’s hard to know that with 3 church services Phil won’t be around much on Christmas Eve and Christmas day he’s just so wiped out. I just really miss my “extra” family and sitting around on Christmas day at Mama’s, opening gifts one at a time for 5 hours, snoozing and snacking the day away.
I think I’ll feel better once the girls are older and we can do things together. So a big boo-hoo for me today and a cup of hot chocolate to make everything better!