December 2019 Update

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Holidays to you all!  If you weren’t one of the families blessed to get our Christmas card, here it is:

Our families are:  Greg, Krista, Abigail, Amelia, Zach, Jem, and Levi Matthews; Carissa, Matt, and Ruby Wilkinson; Kortney, Mat, Daisy, and Bea Rhode; Caitlin and Ben Updegrove; Hannah, Kevin, Alma, Alex, and Ansa Mickle; Ella, Cody, Hazel, Ivy, and Josie Sommer; and Cai and Amy Matthews.

 

The picture is from our family vacation this past September (see my September update below if you have forgotten about our September excitement).

We enjoyed our Thanksgiving with our local families.  As usual, everyone contributed to the meal.  My biggest contribution was in eating it, and it only took me two weeks to lose the weight I gained.  I think Levi won the weight gain contest where some of us weighed ourselves before and after the meal.  If I remember right, he gained three pounds, and I’m not surprised by the way he was wolfing down the rolls.  He probably worked the weight off within a day or so.  Oh to have a young metabolism again!

And the Bills gave us a great Thanksgiving present by dominating the Cowboys, so that made the day even better!

Our celebrations this month were Zach’s birthday on 11/23, Amelia’s birthday on 12/3, and granddaughter Josie’s 2nd birthday on 12/5.  Amelia had hinted that she’d love a surprise party, so Levi planned one for her which I think we actually pulled off.  We coaxed her to our house on the pretext of hanging out with Abigail on 11/30, and everyone was there to celebrate her day.

My barbershop chorus has done a few Christmas sing-outs this month.  We did a tree lighting party for a local town on 12/5, sang at a local mall on 12/10 (and we’re doing a different local mall tomorrow night), and last night we did caroling in the neighborhood around our rehearsal hall.  I love singing about my newborn King!

On 12/7 we went to see my granddaughter, Alma, dance in her Christmas recital.  The kids were all incredibly cute but one of them stood out as the cutest by far (no bias here, I assure you).  She was in a group of Sugar Plum fairies.  A few days later, she and Hannah went to see adults perform, and she got to meet the adult Sugar Plum fairy.  She was very excited!!

This past Saturday 12/14 was a cold, rainy day here.  But we had planned to get our Christmas tree that day, and there was no stopping us.  Krista, Jemmie, Levi, and I braved the damp misery, murdered a tree, and took its carcass home to display for a few weeks, until we decide we’re done with it, when we’ll literally toss it to the curb.  It’s an interesting custom, which I actually love.

I hope your celebrations at this time of year are great times of being with those you love.  More importantly, I hope you know the greatest gift ever given when the eternal, unchanging, all-powerful God of the universe became a helpless baby, so He could live, die, and rise again to fulfill all of God’s promises to His people and redeem us who had rejected Him.  Now we, who don’t deserve it and never could have earned it, can be restored to fellowship and joy and fulfillment in our relationship with Him when we surrender our lives to Him and repent of our sins by trusting only in Jesus’ death and resurrection on our behalf.  <End Christmas sermon>

Alex really gets into his toy playing!

On to 2020!