Happy Birthday Jesus

It is Christmas Eve Day and we are enjoying some family time.  This morning we had fun seeing the new Muppets movie.  By chance, one of John's good friends and his family also had the same idea.  We enjoyed sitting with them and sharing the fun of this feel good movie.  Both Erik and I got weepy during Kermit's singing of "The Rainbow Connection".  I'm not sure what it is about that song, but the eyes water as soon as the banjo begins playing.

We will go to the Family Christmas Eve service at church.  In preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus, we spent part of afternoon collecting coins out of the money jar.  It is the jar that all the spare change goes to when we empty our pockets.  We started by finding all the quarters and putting them in a bracelet jewlery sized box.  Then we filled it with all our dimes, and then we squeezed in as many nickles as we could.  We wrapped it up and we will put it in the offering plate at church tonight.  I think it was $59.00 in coins plus one $1.00 bill.  Was a nice experience to talk about giving something to Jesus in celebration of his birthday through the process of gathering the coins, putting them in the box, wrapping it up and making a card to then give to the Christmas Eve offering.  I think this is likely going to be a new Christmas Eve day tradition.

We will have a quieter Christmas (well as quiet as it can be with three children 10 years old and under) celebration at home tomorrow as my family is in Colorado this year and Erik's are on the Peninsula.  We will enjoy celebrations with both later this week.

Blessings for a beautiful celebration of the birth of Jesus to your family.  It is hard to imagine such a thing to be true; a virgin birth, wise men guided by a star, angels speaking to shepherds.  And yet, as I see the miracles that happen in the lives of family and friends around me, and the answers to long shared prayers unfold, I realize that it is this very faith that holds us all together.  And so I celebrate the first cry of that newborn baby so many years ago and the gift that it is to each of us.