christmas

The Third Day of Christmas 

The three French hens stand for faith, hope, and charity.

I felt pretty useful at church today! I had ward council this morning, and we got out late, and so Chris had to find his own way to church. He planned on getting a ride from some friends, but it didn’t work out, so he had to walk 10 or so minutes to my mom’s house and pick up her car. He said he actually ice skated over there, because we had some snow, but now it’s just rain! So everything has turned into ice. The roads were bad and some people didn’t make it to church. I lead the music today, which I’ve never done in a sacrament meeting, but I’m glad I know how! It was cool being up there and seeing everyone. And then when it was time for the closing prayer, the assigned person wasn’t there and bishop looked behind and asked me to do it. I was glad to. The prayers can and should be a very important part of our church services.

During Sunday School, I sat with my sista Holly. I love being at church with her and I’m glad she’s a faithful church goer, especially now. We were totally twinning today, with long skirts, and dark blue, chunky (funny word), wintry sweaters. She had her scriptures on her lap, so I put mine on my lap to look she like her. Then she opened her cover, so I opened mine. And we both had the same bird sticker in the same place inside! So funny! It was the same type of bird sticker, just different color and facing the other direction. It was placed in the same place, the middle of the top inside cover. I felt great, strong connection that Holly is my sister. I’ve pretty much always looked up to her and I love her lots. How special to have sisters. We both grew in the same womb and we’re blessed we’re here in Homer for each other.

The third hour of church is Young Women time. I prepared my lesson late last night and I wasn’t feeling 200% on it, so I was glad when we decided to got to Relief Society instead! We only had 1.5 yw there today so it was great to go to Relief Society today. I love it in there. And I played piano for the opening and closing songs! We started out with Joy to the World, one of my favorite songs to play, and we ended with How Gentle Gods Commands. I enjoy playing piano and was happy to share my musical talents at church today. Not a lot of people know I play piano. I want to play more and I can, because I have a great full size keyboard here at home. I want an old, wooden, upright piano, but I don’t feel I’m very deserving of one until I play what I have now.

Chris played lots of xbox today. I fell asleep in front of the heater for a while. Then I cleaned up Christmas aftermath, all the stuff we haven’t put away the last week. I want less stuff. I’ve listened to the Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up a few times, and I really want to simplify all of our possessions. Extra stuff takes so much extra energy.

For Chris’s Three French Hens gift today I wrote him a load of love notes and hid them all over the house. I hope he’ll be finding them for weeks. And I put away his pizza he left out. :) Also, I want to have babies.

The 2nd Day of Christmas

The two turtle doves symbolize the Old and New Testament, which bear witness of Christ.

As Chris’s second gift of the 12 days of Christmas, I said we could get rid of this fantastic, mustard yellow chair in our garage. We’ve had it for almost a year, and I love it. But it’s gross and is just taking up space. Christopher doesn’t like it and never wanted it in the first place, and I had big dreams for it to put in my creation room, once I gave it an extremely deep cleaning. :) But alas, I’ve never cleaned it and it would take a lot to clean, so this week we’ll take it to the salvage area at the dump. Tsk tsk but that’s okay.

Also! I learned some other great stuff about turtle doves. Not only are they in Home Alone 2, but they show up in Palestine in about April. And Mary gave two turtle doves as her temple offering after giving birth to Jesus. She didn’t give two lambs because she didn’t have much money, so turtle doves or pigeons were acceptable.

AND we went sledding today and it was SNOW much fun playing in the awesome snow. Where our house is, there’s just a little bit of snow and ice. But head up the hill and BAM (hit by a bus)! It’s winter wonderland! It was so fun and uplifting to be all together and play and eat and laugh. And Chris went to Star Wars for the 4th time today. I almost went, and decided I should stay home and work on my young women lesson for tomorrow. Here it is 2:30 am and I still haven’t done much with it. Oops. I did learn a load about the 12 days of Christmas though! And I had a really great conversation with Chris’s sister. And I listened to Enya.

….. To help prevent after Christmas blues and to keep the spirit of CHRISTmas alive in me, and thanks to my inspiring friend, Alyssa, I’m doing a 12 days of Christmas for Christopher. I’ve read a lot a lot online about the origin of the song and the symbols of each day. Really interesting.

The 12 Days of Christmas starts with Christmas day and ends on the eve of Epiphany, the day commemorated as the Magi/wise men arriving. Something I read said “you can’t celebrate the birth of Christ in just one day!” Which is one of the reasons for 12 days of celebrations. For me, the whole December is pretty Christmassy. Oh I love love Christmastime.

Something eles I read said how some religions weren’t allowed to celebrate their beliefs, so this song helped remind them of things that bring us closer to Christ, and blessings we’ve received. All of the birds or performers or 12 things have interesting secular backgrounds too.

The 1st Day of Christmas

The partridge in a pear tree is Jesus Christ. Christ is symbolically presented as a mother partridge which feigns injury to decoy predators from her helpless nestlings and nest.

For Chris’s gift today, I wrote him a love letter.