On the 1st Day Of Christmas…..Giveaway w/ Zoe Elmore
Welcome to day one of the 12 Days of CHRISTmas giveaway!!! There will be holiday ideas, easy recipes and both practical and pampering prizes to win. Best of all, each day you will meet one of my fellow “sistas” from the Proverbs 31 Ministries speaking team. Get to know them and their wonderful resources including books and teaching cd’s. Why, you might even just discover the speaker you have been looking for to appear at your next event.
So get in the holiday spirit. Tune in each day. Hop on and leave a comment. The more you leave, the better your chances of winning. The winners will be announced on the 13th day of December so comment every day if you can! (Now, don’t neglect the family or the let the house go, just do what I do and lose a little sleep in order to carve out some time to sip something hot and connect with your cyber sisters!!!) Enjoy!!!
Now, let me tell you, I had a hard time deciding which of my Proverbs 31 sisters to feature first. Then I remembered that little verse in the Bible about the last being first and the first being last, so I thought I’d start with my sister with the first name that begins with the last letter of the alphabet…..ladies……meet Zoe Elmore!!!
Zoe’s Bio:
Happily married to Tom Elmore, Zoe is the mother of two sons Joshua and Joseph and her future daughter-in-law Kelsey. She makes her home in Charlotte, North Carolina. She has six years of training with Bible Study Fellowship International where she served as a small group leader and assistant teaching leader for three years.
Zoe has a passion to encourage women and through her gifts of encouragement, compassion and humor, Zoe challenges women to experience the Lord’s peace and provision as she pours His life into theirs. Through inspiring stories and unforgettable word pictures, she will encourage you to experience God’s presence in a new and fresh way.
Ever the princess of our speaker team, Zoe enjoys time with her family and anything that sparkles.
Zoe’s precious family.
- Zoe, how will you and your family celebrate this Christmas season?
This will be our first Christmas without my dad and Tom’s mom as they went to dance with Jesus earlier this year, so we are changing our usual traditions. We will spend Christmas in our home for the very first time and my mom will be joining us for the holiday before she travels to Texas to be with my sister and her family.
We’re really excited that our future daughter-in-law Kelsey will be joining us for part of the holiday.
- What is your most and least loved aspect of this often-hectic time of year?
Most Loved: Time with family and friends. I especially love Christmas morning in our jammies as we open gifts and enjoy breakfast casserole and monkey bread.
Least loved: Not enough hours in the day to get it all done. Oh yeah, and taking down all of the decorations!
- What is your most treasured memory of Christmas as a young bride?
Our first Christmas tree was only 3 feet tall so we placed it on an end table in front of the large window in our apartment. From the street our tiny tree appeared to be full-grown. I hand made all the ornaments for our first tree and we continue to use those every year as we decorate our tree.
- Any holiday foods or decorating ideas you want to share with us today?
I always place a nativity scene in the branches of our Christmas tree to remind us that Jesus was born to die on a tree for our salvation.
I make Baklava and Kourambiethes (Greek pastries). I’ve added hand-made chocolate covered cherries to my repertoire thanks to Proverbs 31 speaker Marybeth Whalen and her mom.
Thanks for visiting with us today, Zoe and Merry CHRISTmas!!!
Okay ladies, Zoe mentioned not enough hours in the day to “get it all done”. Don’t we women, especially moms, feel the pressure to “do it all” every single year. You know, that tug you feel to bake decorated sugar cookies from scratch, construct a magazine-like gingerbread house, make fresh cedar garland for your mantle and hand write a personal note inside all of the 82 Christmas cards you feel compelled to mail out each year. ENOUGH ALREADY!!!!
In my workshop The Holidays: A Time to Bless, Not Stress, I encourage moms to take a deep breath, muster up their courage and hold a family holiday re-evaluation meeting. I did this with my hubby and kiddos about five years ago and we did it again this year on Thanksgiving Day. The goal is to discover exactly what YOUR family holidays should look like and to rid your schedule of the activities and even foods that really aren’t special to your clan.
You see, sometimes we are busting our tails to try to make the perfect holiday, complete with lots of hustle and bustle and homemade fruitcake. What we don’t realize is that our family would be just as happy with less hustle, no bustle and they don’t even care for that fruitcake!!!!
Enlist the help of your hubby, if you have one. Encourage your family members to be ruthlessly honest. Don’t be offended by their answers. After all, you want to scrape some things off of your holiday plate and free up some time to just be together!!! So, gather that darling clan and ask them the following questions:
- What holiday foods do you most love and look forward to eating each year?
- What holiday foods really aren’t your favorites and you could just as soon live without?
- What traditions are the most meaningful to you that we do or have done?
- What traditions do we usually do at the holidays that really aren’t important to you?
- If you could pick only three holiday activities to do as a family (drive and look at lights, Christmas caroling, attending concerts, making cookies, etc…) which ones would you choose?
- And last, but most important, how can we divide up the holiday duties (decorating, addressing cards, baking, etc…) so that all of the responsibilities don’t fall on mom?
What food do I love? Our Jesus Birthday cake. It’s just a sour cream coffee cake with a streusel topping. But, we have a special candle we put in the middle and sing “Happy Birthday Dear Jesus” before we do anything else. Then, we sit around the table and open our stocking gifts.
What could I do without? All the cookies I have to bake. I made the mistake of gifting trays of cookies one year. And although it’s flattering, now everyone says they look forward to them all year!
My husband and I started a tradition with our family a few years ago much like Zoe’s. We live 6 hours from my family and 10 hours from his, so we starting staying home on Christmas Day when our son was born 6 years ago! They rise early and we go down and see what Santa brought. Then we eat some breakfast casserole and Monkey bread, just like Zoe!
We check out the stockings after breakfast and then we open presents from each other. The morning goes by slowly, we don’t rush and I savor every minute of it! We plan Christmas lunch/dinner very simply so that me nor my husband or stuck in the kitchen. We realize this want last forever, but for now it’s sweet and something I couldn’t live without.
I love this! This will be the first time that I am not with my husband in 25 years. We are in the process of a divorce, our children our 15, 16, and 19. It was intresting the other night, we had this same talk. I told them it was about what was important to them this year, not us. I asked them to go upstairs and get the Christmas items that meant the most to them and bring them down. They each went up and got the tree and decorations together and the brought down all the stockings. That was it! I was like, your kidding me. What about this, that and the other? It wasn’t important to them. They said “mom all we want is to be with you”. It was the best gift ever,
Diane
I love this idea – can’t wait to read more insights from the P31 gals!
My favourite tradition at Christmas is setting a place at our table for Jesus. As we enjoy our meal, it is a visual reminder of the One whose birthday we are celebrating. At this place setting we place a ‘crown’ to help us focus on the King who became a baby.
The holiday tradition I would most like to ‘dump’ this year is the Christmas devotional writing I usually include in every Christmas card. I didn’t do it last year and oh the feedback I received. It has come to be a yearly expectation, but the pressure to “people please” should not be my motivation.
Looking forward to reading tomorrow’s post!
Blessings,
Joy
I love to make cookies, I love the decorating and our family always goes to church Christmas morning. Going to church on Christmas morning uplifts us for the rest of the day.
First, let me say I was JUST thinking of that book and Sheri in the shower. I heard her speak at a woman’s conference the day before my girl was born. Man, was I uncomfortable! Anyway, I haven’t forgotten how Sheri lives in the Spirit and is on fire!
I could not live without anginettis. My husband’s Italian grandma made them at the holidays and gave me the recipe! :) And now my son likes to dip them in the glaze.
I could so easily dump pulling out the tree and fluffing it and taking off the ornaments after the holiday. I’d be happy to let them all stay up all year long!
Hi gals! Such fun reading all of your traditions!!! And for those of you who want Zoe’s baklava recipe, click on the link with her name. It will take you to her site where she has it posted today. Yum!!!
A new tradition that I started last year is setting a candle on the breakfast table 12-days prior to Christmas. Then on each of the 12-days I will light it and my son and I together say, “Jesus is the light of the world.” Then I tell him a short story about Jesus and His love.
He loves this. Now any time he sees a lit candle he will say, “Jesus is the light of the world.”
As far as what I could do without. . . like most of the others have said the stress of trying to put in an appearance at everyone’s Christmas gatherings. Way too stressful especially since we live 10-hours away from family.
Christmas Eve with my husband’s family and their traditional perogi’s- potato/cheese and sauerkraut varieties. All handmade together as a family. As family grows up, moves away, heads south for the winter, it’s been harder to keep the tradition alive.
Thank you for your encouragement and Merry Christmas!
Lisa in WA
I love making Wasil (like a cider drink) during the Christmas season and just cherishing all the moments with family and friends! We all seem so busy throughout the years its nice to just get everyone together and enjoy each others company.
I could live without all the hustle and bustle of the crowds that are out shopping. So this year I did some early shopping and the rest I’ve done online!
You don’t have to enter me in the contest because the only thing I have to say is that if Zoe would care to share a baklava recipe I’m sure it would become a “can’t live without” food in our household at the holidays!
Karen,
Thanks for the support and encouragement you’ve given me through your website!
The treat we can’t do without is a dutch pastry called Bonket. It’s made with almond paste and has a flaky crust…mmm…..
Last year I made a promise to myself and my family that they would not have a stressed out Mom this year for the Holidays. I’ve been baking already, a few things at a time, and everything is in the freezer. I’ve already pre-made the casseroles I need for the get-togethers, and my Christmas cards are all addressed. I want to enjoy this season, and having this all finished early is helping me do that!
The tradition I just couldn’t live without is baking, baking, and more baking – especially when I see the smiles on my children’s faces as they devour the goodies.
Karen, you never cease to amaze me! In the middle of the hustle and bustle you once again, are thinking of others. Love that about you!
Well, my family loves having big ol’ cinnamon rolls in the morning baking while we open gifts. My husband jingles the sleigh bells which tells everyone its time to rise and enjoy the Lord’s day together! Probably the most fun is what happens at the end of unwrapping gifts. After a full morning of watching each person open every gift and eating rolls and sipping coffee, we are so totally relaxed and enjoying just being together….then someone remembers, “The Stockings!”
Now I pack some cool stuff in those stockings. They never know what surprise mom has up her stocking, I mean sleeve. Even the oldest child who will soon be 34 LOVES stocking time! The squeals are the same as when they were all toddlers. We sit back and simply appreciate the sweet family moments.
How was that for a long answer to a short question? Sorry ;o)
I would stretch Christmas over more than a couple of days. We are constantly getting pulled in many directions and with two young children this becomes stressful. Therefore, I would stretch Christmas out or pray for the strength to leave everything behind and start our own traditions.
Karen,
Having all of the family together as possible on the day that Jesus came into our lives is a tradition that I couldn’t live without!
As I have grown older and hopefully wiser I realize that having Jesus and my family in my life is all that really counts.
My children have all grown and started lives together with their loved ones in new cities.
The trimmings, the decorations and the food are all fantastic.
The tradition that makes my holidays complete is as many family smiles as possible in my home and Jesus in my heart.
And Remember that God Loves You
Thais VG
My children love to make the easiest home made candy in the world at Christmas, that looks like a gourmet snack! It is simply a looped small pretzel, with a rolo on it, melted for a few minutes in the oven, and then a pecan half pressed top. It is delicious and easy! We also couldnt live without our home made caramel popcorn. Although most people hate the busyness, I love the holiday season and everything about it! (except the holiday bills of course), and our huge manger scene in the kitchen helps us stay focused on why we are celebrating and why Jesus was born in that little manger in the first place.
The tradition I love is putting up the trees. My kids are old enough to put the trees (fake) together almost by themselves. They have a ball doing it! Then the joy of hearing them squeal as they open their ornament boxes and remember special ornaments from previous years is pure delight for this mama.
I could dump the hustle. I hate how busy the holidays are…why do we need to have so many concerts, plays, and parties in December?!? I am determined this year to slow the pace down and stay ahead of the craziness! So far (10 hours in) I am doing okay!
Karen,
Nicely done!! I love this idea. Have a blessed day.
Charlene
I have to have my mom’s homemande mac and cheese for the holidays. We have had that on Christmas since I can remember!!
I would dump running from store to store trying to find a Christmas gift that will get the oh’s and ah’s from everyone when it is opened. I want my gifts to have meaning and be special to that person. I am trying to look at their life and see what is going on in it. Buy a gift that will bless them!!
This is going to be so much fun!!
Blessings, Tricia in KY
On Christmas morning we have muffins and we put a candle in one and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus by the Christmas tree with a fire going. My son with down syndrome loves Happy Birthday and he loves Jesus too. I cry every year watching his face.
As far as what I could dump…..probably the stress of feeling like I have to buy everyone the perfect gift. I love giving and it always has to be just right!
My husband and I have started a tradition that I hope will continue in our family. When we put out our table top nativity set, we leave Jesus out of the manger. Alongside the nativity sits a beautifully wrapped box with a tag “To: the world, From: God”. On Christmas morning this is the first gift that is unwrapped and inside is the baby Jesus for the manger. Then we read the Christmas story from Luke 2 before opening the rest of our gifts.
Can’t live without Chirstmas morning dusties (or pigs in a blanket, depends what you call them). My mom started this awhile ago and I have continued with my kids. Its easy, non messy and yummy! Thanks for the first tip, will be looking at my list and checking it twice!
I love having Christmas breakfast at my parents’ home. Christmas breakfast is what we call a breakfast casserole that our family only has once a year. The tradition began at my grandma’s house. She has passed away and now the tradtion has moved to my parents.
The tradition I could do without is traveling from house to house to see everyone on either Christmas or Christmas Eve. I enjoy seeing our families, but it is all so rushed!
We are fortunate to be forced to scale down this year. We were forced from our home becaue of black mold. After four weeks, we moved back in to one room in the house. After three days of hard work, we are back in every room except for the kitchen which is non functional and the play room which is packed of clothing and “stuff” that has to be cleaned or thrown out. This year, we have our tree up, the kids have their “Charlie Brown” tree that they get to play with and touch, and we have a wreathe on the door that I made last year from retired ornaments from my childhood. That’s it, and strangely, I’m OK with that. It’s a good “feeling” to be able to be content. There is one tradition we are starting that my kids are looking forward to and that making a birthday cake for Jesus. They love to help me cook and decorate cakes!