From Our Home to Yours

One of my favorite Christmas activities is planning our Christmas card, even though there are things about it that stress me out. The ideas for our cards can come pretty easily, but it's the actual taking of the picture we struggle with. Who will take it? What will we wear? When will we pull this off? In addition, Ella is going through a phase (pretty much since she could scoot away from me) where she doesn't want to have her picture taken. I avoid trying to cause unnecessary stress to all of us by not taking too many family pictures.

 Long about October, Bruce and I started to talk about The Advent Conspiracy. 

How could we "Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More and Love All" this Christmas? We decided that we would not focus on a card and give the money we would normally spend on cards and postage to a couple of charities. 

(We chose Charity Water and Main Street Ministries, a local charity, to donate to. Accountability is good, right?) 

 I didn't think I would enjoy "sitting out" this year, and there were times that my attitude was less than on board. There was a little pang of hurt every time someone said they couldn't wait to get our card.  I slowly began to realize that because there wasn't anything about the card this year that I was a slave to, I could experience more freedom in Christmas than I had in a long time. 

And truthfully, I enjoyed your cards so much more!

So, here we are. 

Posting a card that we gave very little thought to. 

And not cringing a bit as we do.

Comfort: in our "play clothes". 

Joy: Happily together.

Comfort and Joy: Silly faced picture of us

 together in our play clothes.

Merry Christmas, friends.

You bring us much comfort and joy.