So Much Goodness

The weeks leading up to Christmas were slower and more deliberate than usual; however, they still passed way too quickly but were filled with too much goodness not to share.  I always get giddy with excitement at the end of the year as the fruits of my labor here on to blog will soon take shape into our pretty hard bound book full of captured moments and memories from our year.  Hard to believe it is time for that already!

Lene and I headed out for some girl time at Cocoa and Cupcakes, a Christmas celebration that takes place at our friend's church.  As excited as I was originally to go, it happened to be raining and getting there proved more challenging than I thought.  In addition, if I'm being real, Lene and I got into an argument as I was disappointed with her lack of effort into getting ready for our night out together.  It is such a catch 22--I know I am blessed that she is not overly interested in fashion and fitting in with her middle school peers, but sometimes I wish she would take more initiative and not fight me on dressing up from time to time, letting her beautiful curls down, and dare I say, ""be more girly?"  That comment may come back to haunt me int the future, I'm sure, but this particular night was hard.  And then we got there and were so blessed by the speaker, by the message--by the reminder of Christ coming to earth for us.  It turned out to be a great night and I'm glad I didn't let the devil steal my joy.

This little one loved hearing the ringing bells of the Salvation Army and enjoyed putting spare change in their bucket.  Once outside Sam's she was even able to ring the bell herself.

 My book club celebrated Christmas with a potluck brunch and a few of our favorite things. So much fun! And so many cute favorite things!

My Mom's group at church had a beautiful book club discussion followed by a gift exchange, feast, and a beautiful chorus of Happy Birthday to Jesus!  Such a blessing to be a part of!

One Tuesday morning, we followed the third graders across the street down to the church on the corner. They have an annual tradition of making candy canes, and they didn't mind us tagging along and calling it a field trip. It fit right in with our book about the Legend of the Candy Cane!  Nessa was able to see her friend and I was able to reconnect with a mom who moved out of state four years ago, but who is now back/.  I love how the Lord led her back and we were able to catch up.  I look forward to more conversation with her in the future.

Another day, we were able to go to a friend's house for a play date and lunch.  Our visit was long overdue and such soul food for me.  It was the kind of catch up session where there were no lulls or silences because it had been so long and so much goodness is happening between our families.  A joy to be a part of and to see Nessa running around playing and having such a good time.  It was a very special blessing this holiday season for me.

In between all this goodness, we still did school and I just felt completely in love with every detail of my life. All of it.

And one Saturday morning we headed to our church to help pass out Christmas baskets and toys for families going through a difficult time.  We went through the line three times.  I can not believe we had never helped out in this way before.  It was love in action and it gave each of the kids a job to do to bless someone else. Their energy and enthusiasm was contagious and I was so grateful that they really seemed to get it. . .how blessed we are and how it's our job to help others.  I do believe this is something we will definitely be a part of again.

And no year is complete without our annual visit to the Living Nativity.  There were some changes to it this year and we dressed warmly, hot cocoa in hands as we walked through and watched each scene unfold. No matter how many times we've heard it, it never seems to lose it's awe factor.  I love that the kid's feel like this is what the Frank family does. It is part of what makes Christmas...Christmas.

We hadn't been to the candy store to watch them make candy canes for a long time, but we thought Anthony might enjoy it so we went.  And it was packed, so we walked down a main street and checked out the nativity scene too.  Then we headed out to dinner.  It was fun!

The night concluded with us driving around town looking for houses that displayed the nativity scenes in their yards.  The kids had carefully colored a dozen different nativity scenes and had written, "Thank you for remembering Jesus is the reason for the season."  They took turns running their pictures up to the doors and leaving them under mats.  We had Christmas music playing and it was so enjoyable to watch them and to hear them plan aloud that next year they need to color even more!

When I look at all of these activities, it feels like we did a lot, but the reality is it was all very focused on Christ's birth and we tried to keep bringing it back to Jesus,  And it felt like they really get it and that just might be the biggest gift to me.