Christmas

This week has been lovely after a few weeks of hectic running around.  I am finally catching up on a little sleep and feeling a little more normal (if I ever am normal  he he)   I love the week leading up to Christmas.  The secret rustles,  giggling and 'hide and seek'  with gifts.  I love the genuine love of people and care. I wish this could carry on all year.  I love also the little secrets we do as a family for others.  It gives us lovely warn fuzzies and excitement for the recipients of our secrets. 



With all the commercialism of Christmas is is so easy to get caught up in the trims and trappings.  How can we remember the true reason for Christmas?   How can we get back to simplicity and celebrating the birth of Christ and spend quality time as a family?  Here are some things that work for us

• K.I.S.S Keep it simple sister.  Is is really necessary to make 20 ginger bread houses for gifts? 
• Serve others.  For our 12 days of Christmas this year we have done acts of service for each other in our home.  I.E  1st day one act,  2nd day 2 acts etc.  It has been really fun and has brought a lovely feel into our house
• Visit with neighbours
• Visits with elderly and those with no family
• Bake and drop off secretly on door steps
• Decorate letter boxes in your neighbour hood.  Maybe even tape lollipops to the boxes too.
• Play traditional Christmas music
• Have all you meals together
• Make a handmade gift. 
• Go to church on Christmas day (or as near to Christmas day as possible)
• Read or act out the Christmas story
• Sing carols
• Go carolling (lots of fun)
• Read Christmas books as a family
• Have a Christmas concert
• Go to a community carols night
• Drive around your neighbourhood looking at Christmas lights
• Sit and listen to a child or friend or family member.
• Serve as a local soup kitchen
• Wrap a couple of presents up and drop them in to a homeless shelter or woman's refuge
• Watch a Christmas movie together.  The Nativity From the Church of Jesus Christ of latterday saints is beautiful. ( lds.org )

Get your thinking caps on and think about how you can get more meaning in your Christmas. 

Merry Christmas to you all.  Have a wonderful season and day





Love Catherine xxxxx

Coping with stress

No matter what I do at this time of the year I always seem to have stress.  In the Southern hemisphere Christmas falls at the same time as the summer holidays and end of year breakups.  I seem to spend so much time trying to balance my time and keep sane.  I feel really sorry for my children because of all the extra pressure and needing to be in so many places in short spaces of time. This is how I sometimes look on Christmas day and it really isn't worth it if we are to tired to enjoy the day.

I have come up with a few ways to cope in this busy season that work for me.  Not everything that I do will work for you but I hope there might be a couple of things that  may help

•  I try to keep fourth term extra curricular things down to a bare minimum.
• I write daily to do lists that I don't keep to strictly but use as a guideline each day so that as I get nearer Christmas I don't collapse under the strain
• I start shopping in June when I start seeing things on sale and I tuck them into the cupboard.  This helps the budget too.
• I take time everyday to smell the roses.  I may take a walk or look at the cloud or read a book.  Just something small to gain peace in my heart.
• I try to keep order in my home.  I sometimes have to rely on the children a bit more but it is worth it for the extra visual peace.
• I don't do everything.  I chose to say yea to some things and no to others.  I base my decisions on the goals and values my family is aiming towards
• I prioritise people first and jobs second
• I try to spend an little time each day with each of my children and my husband.  Relationships always come first
• I keep the lines of communication open in my home so I can see when things are getting too much for people.
• I keep a well used calendar which everyone in the house can add things too
• I expect help from everyone who is available.  If everyone does their bit the load is easier.
• K.I.S.S  Keep It Simple Sister.  I don't need to make ginger bread houses for everyone or elaborately decorate the house
• Remember to keep simple traditions with lots of meaning not traditions that take a lot of preparations and give very little in return
• Serve others it always keep life in perspective.
• Keep food simple but yummy.  A roast is always easy to prepare but is always delicious.

When I follow these things I find the stress decreases a little and really begin to enjoy the season.  I hope there could be something here that helps you.

Catherine xxx

Inspriation Saturday

I want to share a story with you today about hope and love.  It is one of my favourites and everytime I read it I feel the desire to hang on and hope even when others hope has gone.

THE TABLECLOTH 

The brand new pastor and his wife, newly assigned to their first ministry, to reopen a church in suburban Brooklyn, arrived in early October excited  about their opportunities.

When they saw their church, it was very run down and needed much work. They set a goal to have everything done in time to have their first service on Christmas Eve. They worked hard, repairing pews, plastering walls, painting, etc. and on Dec 18 were ahead of schedule and just about finished. On Dec 19 a terrible tempest - a driving rainstorm - hit the area and lasted for two days. On the 21st, the pastor went over to the church. His heart sank when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large area of plaster about 20 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary just behind the pulpit, beginning about head high. The pastor cleaned up the mess on the floor, and not knowing what else to do but

postpone the Christmas Eve service, headed home.

On the way he noticed that a local business was having a flea market type sale for charity so he stopped in. One of the items was a beautiful, handmade, ivory colored, crocheted tablecloth with exquisite work, fine colors and a Cross embroidered right in the center. It was just the right size to cover up the hole in the front wall. He bought it and headed back to the church. By this time it had started to snow. An older woman running from the opposite direction was trying to catch the bus. She missed it. The pastor invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus 45 minutes later. She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor while he got a ladder, hangers, etc., to put up the tablecloth as a wall tapestry.

The pastor could hardly believe how beautiful it looked and it covered up the entire problem area. Then he noticed the woman walking down the center aisle. Her face was like a sheet. "Pastor," she asked, "where did you get that tablecloth?" The pastor explained. The woman asked him to check the lower right corner to see if the initials, EBG were crocheted into it there. They were. These were the initials of the woman, and she had made this tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria. The woman could hardly believe it as the pastor told how he had just gotten the Tablecloth. The woman explained that before the war she and her husband were well-to-do people in Austria. When the Nazis came, she was forced to leave. Her husband was going to follow her the next week. She was captured, sent to prison and never saw her husband or her home again. The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth; but she made the pastor keep it for the church.

The pastor insisted on driving her home, that was the least he could do. She lived on the other side of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn for the day for a housecleaning job. What a wonderful service they had on Christmas Eve. The church was almost full. The music and the spirit were great. At the end of the service, the pastor and his wife greeted everyone
at the door and many said that they would return. One older man, whom the pastor recognized from the neighborhood, continued to sit in one of the pews and stare, and the pastor wondered why he wasn’t leaving. The man asked him where he got the tablecloth on the front wall because it was identical to one that his wife had made years ago when they lived in Austria before the war and how could there be two tablecloths so much alike? He told the pastor how the Nazis came, how he forced his wife to flee for her safety, and he was supposed to follow her, but he was arrested and put in a prison. He never saw his wife or his home again all the 35 years in between. The pastor asked him if he would allow him to take him for a little ride. They drove to Staten Island and to the same house where the pastor had taken the woman three days earlier. He helped the man climb the three flights of stairs to the woman’s apartment, knocked on the door and he saw the greatest Christmas reunion he could ever imagine.

Based on a true Story - submitted by Pastor Rob Reid

Keep holding on to hope.