Merry Christmas!

It seems we've been celebrating all month, and I suppose we sort of have. This Christmas has been a wonderful one for us: full of family, friends and shared experiences. I'm very sentimental and I love traditions, but I also enjoy adding new things to our family's celebration.

First and foremost we celebrate the birth of our Savior. This nondescript birth under humble circumstances changed the world as we knew it. Amazing! That event continues to change our lives every day.

The challenge we as parents face is teaching this significance to our children as well as remembering it ourselves. I get caught up in my lists. I want everything to be perfect. I don't want any one's feelings to be hurt.

We try our very best to show our children that Christmas is not about ourselves. We make sure that they are present and with us when we, as a family, participate in several "outside ourselves" activities each year. This has usually involved gift buying for various charitable groups, but the opportunity presented itself this year to be a little less faceless and a little more hands on. We signed up to help serve breakfast with a group form our church at the local rescue mission. The guests ranged from gentlemen who sleep there at the mission to families who needed a warm breakfast and perhaps a gift to give to their children. Don't let me make this seem like we are some sort of Mother Theresa family...we were up before dawn and the kids tore into their Santa gifts with the reckless abandon that I imagine sums up the middle-class American life...but we are trying to make small steps toward looking beyond ourselves to the needs right next to us. I suppose the next step would be for the kids (ok, and the adults too) to actually give up some of our own material treasures to give to others. Right now we're still in the "give to others while still enjoying our own treasures" stage. Baby steps.

Anyway, we were so proud of the kids and their willingness to go to the rescue mission from 6:30 - 8:30am on Christmas morning. Nicholas, especially, "got it" and really did a fine job of delivering the true Christmas spirit to his fellow man with dignity and kindness. I think we're going to try to find opportunities to do similar things throughout the year so it's not just a Christmas thing.

I took way too many pictures (on my new fancy camera, I admit sheepishly) to possibly post here, so let's try this supposedly public "share" link to my Facebook album:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=47489&id=1217846859&l=27f8c115dd

Merry Christmas, family & friends!