Ben really loving decorating cookies
Dani guarding the stairs so no one sees the presents.
Silly Aurallia, Morgan and Moyou
Yeawee with her finished creations.
Yeawee, Madison making cookies.
Daddy giving Aurallia and Julie instruction.
Mary so..... proud.The Grandchildren are here for a couple of weeks, school is out. My daughter Monique has to work but she brought sugar cookies to decorate for all 20 kids. Actually my job was to wrap the presents upstairs and my amazing husband took on the cookie decorating. I just know so few men who would offer to do cookie decorating with twenty kids......
Since we moved to a smaller home we don't have room for a Christmas tree and guess what? We don't even miss it. This year we watched a movie about a group of young men brought over from Africa. They were strong Christian men who had lived a really difficult life in a refugee camp. When they explained how we celebrate Christmas they wanted to know what a Christmas tree has to do with the birth of Christ. That really made me think about how we celebrate the birth of our Savior. What does a tree have to do with Jesus being born? Are our hearts centered on Christ and his birth or on who gets the best presents? Should we only be giving to the poor and needy? So this year we cut down the presents, the kids drew names to give to each other, and we lived without a tree. And next year.....
While I was writing this and uploading pictures my daughter Dani said "Mom why don't we give up one of our presents next year and give it to a homeless person." Yeah, she gets it....
What an encouraging post. We too don't have a tree this year. No money to buy one. At first it seemed like a big deal but now, no one notices it. We have cut way back on presents too. We are still happy and able to focus more on spending time with each other instead of searching for gifts that will be forgotten in a week.
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