I will be brutally honest - 2009 sucked, in many ways. (btw, you know this must be Jason writing because of the oh-so-cheerful first sentence, and also by the extensive hyphen usage thus far.) I am not going to get to far into why, exactly, the year sucked, because that would make for a incredibly depressing blog post. This isn't to say that there weren't some very awesome things that happened this year - because there were. Click click click below to check some of them out.
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2008 Christmas Post



Some years Christmas seems to come to slowly - I'd think most of these years would be when we were younger. Those presents taunting us under the Christmas tree, bulging stockings over the grate, and plates of Christmas goodies we weren't allowed to touch until after dinner. But inevitably, it would come and we'd bury ourselves in holiday effluvia...only to look confusedly around the next day and say "it's over?"



Some years Christmas comes just on time. You have the perfect amount of Christmas spirit, despite having gone to the mall an obscene number of times during peak shopping hours, or having heard "Winter Wonderland" enough times in enough variations to lose your mind. Last year was one of those years for us. Despite everything, we managed to have a joyous Christmas until - Christmas Day - we all dissolved into squabble and hurt feelings. No one is perfect.



This year, Christmas seems to have already passed. Part of it spawns from being surrounded by Christmas every Sunday since August as we practiced for the play. I've felt a bit resentful - we've had to tack Christmas in here and there. In between play practice and work and Doxa, we found 30 minutes here and there (mostly late at night, in a state of pure exhaustion) to go out and buy a Christmas tree, then a few days later string it with lights, and then a few more days after that - hang some ornaments on it. We decorated the rest of the house earlier in the month, mostly so it would be done in time for Jason's family as they came into town - not out of any overflow of Christmas joy. All of our gifts were purchased in less than a week - both online and in the mall. We braved both Costco during the holidays, as well as the bigger box stores like Best Buy and Target, and even - the mall. The name of which practically becomes a curse word in our home during the month of December.



I suppose the strongest sense I have this year is that Christmas is so much in flux. Some of this is from simply being a young married couple with no children and therefore still expected to move back and forth between several Christmas celebration locations. The rest of my siblings are unmarried and still wanting the same Christmas traditions every year. It took ages for my side of the family to decide when to celebrate Christmas with us - since we're with Jason's side of the family on Christmas Day this year. Eventually, we received less than 48 hours notice to be at my parent's house with Christmas gifts wrapped and ready. The weather has not been able to settle on one theme in weeks. One day it will be 19 degrees and snowing, the next it will be 50. For Christmas here in Seattle area, we're predicted 46 for tomorrow. Somehow, that just seems...strange, to me.



However fast Christmas seems to come - the fact is, it is still there. And while the way and place we celebrate it may change, one of the greatest parts of Christmas is that its source never changes. It doesn't matter if we have Christmas spirit, or all of our decorations are up, whether it's 18 or 80 degrees outside.
Even if we've heard that stupid Chipmunk songs 1,000 times and the gingerbread men are on fire in the oven. The season is still one of peace and rejoicing, whether we feel like it is or not. We can choose to do this just as much in a motel as we can at grandma's. No matter what pressures we feel. For all of this noise, we can remember Christmas is not about us, nor our children, nor our families and friends, nor the government or the economy. It's about a baby. And a God so awesome He would pull on the robes of humanity to reach us.

Which is what I try to remember every Christmas Eve. Sometimes I feel ready for Christmas and sometimes I don't. This year happens to be one I have felt tired of Christmas before it's even here. However, Christmas Eve often changes that. A quiet sort of joy emerges. A whisper that says "rejoice! For tomorrow..." Tomorrow...

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Well - for a while there it seemed like our entire lives were centered around 1941 and hair. Our church's annual Christmas Alive was last week, and for 7 straight days we were at the church for rehearsals or performances or...something having to do with the play. I (Sarah) had a part and was blessed to get to act alongside two of my very good friends, Dellaina (center) and Tami (right). And since I know next to nothing about doing my own hair, unless it has to do with a ponytail holder and some flax seed gel, I got to spend a good amount of time with my stylist sister, Kate, while she did my hair in victory rolls and the like.

For the most part, our performances went off beautifully, with no major mishaps other than a bit of mic trouble now and then. Honestly, I felt it was a blessing to everyone who was involved and hopefully to those who attended as well. Jason was a trooper and came to every performance, and a large portion of his family came to various performances as well. In the past two weeks, we've been visited by 10 of his family members. It's been great to see them so often, especially as we'll get to see them again in three or four days as we travel (weather permitting) to the west side of the state for Christmas.

If you came to the play, thank you so much for supporting us and we hope you enjoyed it, even though it may have seemed like odd subject matter for a Christmas play (the bombing of Pearl Harbor). If you missed it, we'll be sure and let you know if anything else like this comes up again that we're involved in. As for now, we're recovering from that and a Very Doxa Christmas - our Doxa Christmas Carol sing-a-long - which was tonight. We also finished all our Christmas shopping tonight (having gone from no presents purchased to all presents purchased in just over a week - go us!)

We hope to post a few more times before Christmas itself, but don't be surprised if we're a bit MIA until next week - being out of town. But then we should be unveiling the first entries in our annual "Top Ten Movie" lists just in time to welcome in the New Year.

If you don't hear from us again - have a very Merry and Blessed Christmas with your families!





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...I hope this makes up for it. Things simply got a bit hectic last Wednesday when I realized upon waking up that we were supposed to leave THAT day for Thanksgiving vacation. But here you go. We decorated a bit for Christmas tonight. Setting up some lights and knick-knacks, setting aside tree decorations for a week or two in the future, and planning which outdoor lights will go where on Saturday when we set things up in the front yard. I know many people who have already decorated all out for the holidays, and others who are dead set against doing it this early in the month. But seeing as the next few weeks are so crazy for us what with the play and Doxa and vacations, we're putting up decorations when we have time. So here's a recipe to get your holidays started right - the molasses cookie recipe everyone loves and credits to me - which they shouldn't, considering I got it from my friend, Sarah, who got it from The Best Recipe cookbook (correct me if I'm wrong, Sarah). Read More...