Snapshot Christmas Memories
Congrats to Jenny Mullins. You won Mary Snyder’s giveaway from last week. Send your home address to [email protected] to claim your prize.
When pulling out some past Christmastime photos for a decorating idea I had a few weeks ago…..well, what should have been a ten-minute task turned into an hour long trip down memory lane, complete with both chuckles and crying.
It isn’t just a cliche. It is the truth.
Time flies.
This past summer, my beloved boyfriend from college and I celebrated 25 years of wedded bliss.
Okay….so only about 23% of it is actually bliss. About 17% is “He/she drives me so bonkers I wanna move to a desert island”, about 39% is just doing regular old life–carting kids, paying bills, keeping up the cars, house and yard–and the remaining 21%?
Laughing until our sides hurt.
Todd and I really are great friends and we joke and prank and see humor in everyday life. It really helps any “knock-down, drag-outs” resulting from the above category number two to be short lived. We try to stay mad at each other, but end up laughing!
Well, while perusing the pictures in my antiquated photo boxes, what I cried most about was the news that this might be the last time our 20 -year-old Kenna’s boss lets her have time off to come home for Christmas. (We live in Michigan. She in Charlotte, NC)
Seems salons are mighty busy on Christmas Eve with up-dos and such. However, with her aunt’s stage four cancer, her gracious boss let her have a few days off before Christmas so she could fly home.
So, not only to spend time with Kenna (who arrives home in two days and we’ve STILL not got the outdoors lights up yet. Think Christmas With The Kranks :-)) but to hang out with the boys, and my hubby for the next two weeks, I am going on a blogging break.
My laptop will be here when I return.
My time with all five Ehmans sipping homemade hot cocoa, eating apricot jam-laden, melted brie with Ritz crackers Ritz (recipe here) and fighting over a “hearty” (code for cut-throat!) board game are numbered.
What days are numbered in your life?
I challenge you too to focus for the holiday season that remains on the face-to-face relationships in your life.
While I ADORE my cyber friends and the community we share weekly, I never want to let them trump time alone with my clan, experiencing worship and service with my church or reaching out to those whom God puts in my path (with Spence’s entrance into public school this year, lately that has been many Saturday overnights with hungry 13-year-old boys whom we then take to church with us on Sunday mornings :-))
So, I leave you with some of those Christmas pics that made my heart stop and my eyes leak. I’ll see you back here in January.
Have a blessed Christmas and giddy New Years!!!
Our very first Christmas tree 1986. Three Rivers, Michigan apartment on Thomas Lane. We purchased it for 5 bucks on a corner lot the Lions club ran in a little town about a half hour from there. Todd was totally rockin’ the Steven Curtis Chapman mullet that year. :-)
The kids in 1998. Kenna 7, Mitch 3 and baby Spence (now a 200 pound plus offensive tackle) 10 months old.
Oh buddy. 2006. The year I tried to “capture” the perfect Christmas photo. None of them would cooperate. Kenz fussed too much with her hair and lip gloss. Mitch wouldn’t smile and Spence kept clowning around. Finally, I gave up. I told them each to go grab something that uniquely reflected their personality and this is what we sent out that year! Favorite. Picture. EVER!!!!
Our snowman circa 1998. After fretting because his eyes were too small when we tried to use buttons and such, our genius, dyslexic son Mitch dashed into the toy box and grabbed huge black wheels from his tinker toys. He also gave him firewood for arms and something that acted as his cigar. (We couldn’t find the corn-cob pipe I’d gotten at a garage sale that year.) Best snowman on Traver Street that year. :-)
Have a wonderful celebration of Jesus! You are loved and appreciated by me and all of us at Proverbs 31 Ministries!!!
As my Christmas card to you, watch the most AWESOME rendition of the Hallelujah chorus by the winning gospel choir from a recent Verizon contest “How Sweet The Sound”. Unlike any version you have ever heard! Turn up the volume and CLICK HERE.