* The Beginning of Winter

We have returned from our week long trek into the world of Thanksgiving visits. Both Judah and myself hold fiercely to our family gatherings, so that requires going both places. This is something we used to attempt on Thanksgiving itself until our son was a toddler, when we then switched to going to the second place on Friday, revamping the alternating pattern used by most couples. With Thanksgiving over my brain has decided it is winter, a few weeks before the official date. I also now have permission to decorate the house for Christmas and play holiday music whenever I want.

We began decorating Sunday night and succeeded in getting the trees assembled and lights on. Judah's tree took much less effort since he rejoices in jerking it out of the box in one (three foot) piece and plunking it into the stand - DONE. Both children were very much into helping and staked their respective gender claims, my son took the yellow and black tipped branches and my daughter the red and pink, leaving me the green, white, and brown to place into my larger than three foot tree. When the time for lights came they were both still enthused about decorating and wishing to help. I must now state that I am a bit particular about the storage of our Christmas lights and have repackaged them each year as they originally came so as to not have to untangle anything. It has been a great system. Thirty seconds into the lights my daughter had already removed an unapproved twisty tie and lost it while not moving from her place, something only a three year old can do. She was removed from her post. This may sound harsh but it is the way of things. :) She was not beaten, just demoted. Perhaps she can reapply for the position next year. My son held the post of twisty tie unwrapper beautifully. Not losing one of them through the remainder of the process. His method was unorthodox but effective. As each tie came off he twisted it into a man/alien figure that marched around the dining room table. He proudly took the twisted figure into show Judah in the other room. His father was decidedly reserved since he has known me far longer and has also been demoted from Christmas light twisty tie removal in the past. In a hushed tone Judah asked his son

"Does your mother know you did that?"

Bless them both. :) Admittedly I nearly fell over the first time I saw the figure, but I have been working on my deep breathing, and he definitely wasn't losing any.

We are doing the remainder of the decorating today, ornaments. Pray for us.

On another topic.....

It snowed here yesterday, which in my brain was perfect since it was December 1 and seemed to symbolically agree with my notion that December should be a winter month. Nothing stuck but it was beautiful to behold. The kids came out of karate in the middle of it. My son ran around and stuck out his tongue and generally looked so stereotypical that it was adorable. When we were driving later we turned a corner and hit a larger flurry that took my breath away. Fat fluffy flakes swirling around - perfect. I felt like Elijah in 1 Kings 19"...for the Lord is about to pass by.... and after (all the big stuff like earthquakes and fire)... there came a gentle whisper." I am thankful that God passed us by yesterday.

May He give you eyes to see the same.