Christmas Joy

Good Christian men, rejoice
With heart and soul and voice
Now ye hear of endless bliss
Joy! Joy!
Jesus Christ was born for this
He hath ope'd the heav'nly door
And man is blessed evermore
Christ was born for this
Christ was born for this

Our Christmas was full of celebration. We quite literally celebrated for days, savoring the joy of our Savior's birth and the joy of being together.

The celebrating began on the 23rd, when Kathleen was invited to a birthday party for Jesus. Our friends the Farmers hosted the event, and they did a fantastic job. The children made a nativity craft out of popsicles and clothespins. They also enjoyed an enormous bounce-house! Kathleen's not quite as good at jumping as some of the other children, but she enjoyed it nonetheless. Before the party, Daddy had been telling Kathleen how to make new friends: you walk up, you say hi, and you tell them your name. Kathleen tested out this approach at the party, racing by the other little girls on the bounce-house, calling out, "Hi!" and then patting herself on the chest and saying, "Neenie!" (That's Kathleen's version of her nickname, Leenie.) The other children didn't quite understand what she was doing, but Mama did! (And it reminded Mama that Kathleen is her own person and, at some point, will venture out into the world on her own. It was a particularly scary realization for Mama, and prompted some conversing with Jesus. Good thing it was His party.)

After lots of bouncing, the children took turns blowing out the candles for Jesus' birthday. Kathleen has been singing Happy Birthday to Jesus ever since.

On Christmas Eve our family had a splendid little dinner. We have our own (relatively young -- but we've only been married 5 years!) tradition of cooking a German feast on Christmas Eve. Now, we're not claiming that this is what Germans eat on Christmas Eve, but it's some of the foods we miss from when we lived in Germany -- bratwurst, brotchen (rolls), kasespaetzle (cheese noodles), and gurkensalat (cucumber salad). Although we weren't able to find Gluhwein this year, we toasted with some Erdinger weissbier instead! And we finished off our meal with some lebkuchen (we'll admit it's much better if you buy it fresh at a Christmas market) and some Rittersport chocolate. Yum!

After supper we went to our Christmas eve service, where a friend snapped the above photo of us. And after our beautiful, candle-lit service, we captured a very tired Kathleen wishing everyone a merry Christmas:

We enjoyed a leisurely Christmas morning, slowly emptying our stockings and opening our gifts to one another.

Because Kathleen is too small to read nametags (even our genius has her limits!) we tagged everyone's gifts with shapes: Mama was a green circle, Daddy an orange triangle, Kathleen a red heart, and Madeline a yellow star. Kathleen did a very good job of making sure everyone got the right presents!

We opened some gifts, took a break for breakfast, and then opened some more gifts. Kathleen then decided to press her new water toys into immediate service, and took a bath. By the time we finished the bath and some lunch, it was naptime. Present-opening continued in that meandering fashion for days!

After naptime friends joined us for Christmas dinner. Altogether there were eight adults, two toddlers, and four infants. It was a wonderful, slightly crazy, joyful gathering, and just as Christmas should be! We are grateful to have good friends when family is so far.

After supper, Kathleen and her friend Addie participated in a long-standing Christmas tradition: ignoring new presents and playing with the box!

We hope that your celebrations were just as joyful. Merry Christmas!