Thirteen favorite holiday movie moments

This is not a comprehensive list; nor is it in any particular order.

1. Meg Ryan singing "horses, horses, horses" ("Jingle Bells") in her car in "Sleepless in Seattle."

2. Linus' recitation of the Luke nativity account in "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

3. The Island of Misfit Toys in "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." (Who wants a squirt gun that shoots grape jelly?!)

4. Gonzo and Rizzo's narration of "A Muppet Christmas Carol."

5. The cat getting electrocuted in "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation." (usually I am a cat lover, but you have to admit it's a hilarious sound!)

6. "A Christmas Story." Hard to pick one moment, but I have always loved "I can't put my arms down!!"

7. "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch" -- "Your soul is an apalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable, Mangled up in tangled up knots." -- in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."

8. "A toast ... to my big brother, George. The richest man in town!" from "It's a Wonderful Life."

9. The song and dance numbers in "White Christmas." (I used to watch this movie year-round. I was obsessed with it when I was in high school and college.)

10. The snowglobe in "While You Were Sleeping." So romantic. More proof that the best gifts aren't expensive, but thoughtful.

11. Joe sweet-talking the cashier at Zabar's during the Thanksgiving rush in "You've Got Mail." "It's your turn to say 'Happy Thanksgiving' back." "Happy Thanksgiving back."

12. Harry's New Year's Eve declaration of love to Sally in "When Harry Met Sally."

"I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

(For those of you who are not counting, that makes 3 Meg Ryan movies in this list...)

13. What are yours?

Another Christmas tradition...

After we set out the nativity scene, we watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas" together.




The boys LOVE Snoopy. He doesn't even have to do anything -- he just has to be onscreen -- and the kids go crazy laughing at him.

A Christmas tradition

Setting up our nativity scene...









Baby Jesus will remain in an undisclosed location until Christmas Eve, when the youngest child who is able will place him in the manger.

Christmas tree

After stopping at a few local tree farms and discovering that they were either a) closed when they were supposed to be open, or b) incredibly overpriced, we headed to Lowe's to pick out a Christmas tree. The supply was good and fresh!

Excited!!!

Ben posing with the tree. This is actually a "foreshadowing" picture, because about halfway home, Ben fell off the backseat -- still in his booster seat -- and onto the tree next to him. Cameron managed to pull him and his carseat back up to safety.

Jonathan doing his best "I can't put my arms down!" imitation.

Helping Daddy.

Too many cooks...

Here's a funny series of pictures I took when we were preparing to get our tree on Monday night. David was rearranging the carseats, and the kids were doing their best to help.

Thanksgiving recap

Last Thursday was a very special celebration for us. We had actual family...David's younger brother, Jimmy, was here from Atlanta for the weekend. And we had church family...Nathan and Joy and their four children, Martha, and Tom. Precious people, all of them.

David began the meal by reading Psalm 103, and then the kids sang their Thanksgiving song. We blessed the meal and sat to eat around 1:30 in the afternoon. After dinner, as we sat in the kitchen enjoying dessert -- every good gathering begins and ends in the kitchen, in my opinion -- we shared Thanksgiving praises to God. What were we thankful for? Here are some of the responses...

- God's mercy

- God is in the business of working out sancification, not just salvation

- a new job

- friends

- healthy family members

It was wonderful to think of where we all were a year ago, and reflect on the blessings of the past year, as well as those that are consistent from year to year, age to age.

My favorite thing about the day was that people lingered...our last guest left around nine that night. And some neighbors dropped by to share some food and conversation.

David attempting to improve the television reception with a turkey leg.

A day of Gratitude...

I'll post more about our day a bit later but here are some photos to whet your appetite...

Now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices

Reading time

Joyful kitchen helpers

The last of the mashed potatoes

I think I have a disease

I found myself in my kitchen this morning at 6:15 a.m. mashing potatoes in my pajamas.

'Nough said.

Thanksgiving diary, Tuesday

The two major things I am making for our Thanksgiving dinner are Roast Turkey with Maple Herb Butter and Gravy, and New England Sausage, Apple and Dried Cranberry Stuffing. I made both recipes last Thanksgiving, when David's family shared the holiday with us, and I was very happy with the results! The gravy is a bit different -- sweeter -- than traditional turkey gravy, since it's made with cider and syrup, but it was delicious.

This morning I made the maple-herb butter that accompanies the turkey. It made a wonderful aroma as it simmered on the stove. This afternoon I will most likely prepare the mashed potatoes, which will be refrigerated and cook in the slow-cooker on Thursday. I will also mix up my pie crust, which can stay in the fridge until Thursday morning when I roll it out.

Thanksgiving diary, Monday

Yesterday I took our lovely turkey from the freezer so she could start defrosting in the fridge. This was, of course, after madly rearranging everything in the fridge and throwing out some things that weren't worth keeping.

I also went on a shopping trip yesterday with my friend Nicole to pick up some odds and ends for our feast. It was a comedy of errors from the beginning...I am still laughing out loud over some of the things we encountered, including a dead duck, a dead lizard, and a tree farm (which one did we encounter inside the Super Wal-Mart?! It wasn't the tree farm!).

This morning the boys and I made napkin holders for our table that resemble turkeys...sort of....

Merry Christmas to us!

David and I bought each other a new digital camera for Christmas this year. It came in the mail yesterday and we've been playing ever since!

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen confessions:
1. I have always wanted to own an American Girl doll.
2. After I read my email this morning, the first "news" story I clicked on was "Who Won 'Dancing With the Stars'?"
3. The last time I got my hair cut...well, I honestly can't remember.
4. Sometimes when I have a lot of housework to do, I blast Barry Manilow's greatest hits. Nothing gets you moving like the Copacabana.
5. If nobody's looking, I have been known to eat cold pizza for breakfast.
6. I find it relaxing to color with crayons.
7. I did "The Chicken Dance" proudly at my wedding reception.
8. I once had kidney stones, and now I think it's because of the sheer amount of chocolate I was eating at the time.
9. I fool myself into thinking that I could win "Dancing with the Stars," or a similar competition. Except I guess I'm not a "star." ;-)
10. I once fell onstage at a dance recital. (I guess I should rethink #9...)
11. I was one of those annoying people in college who played games in the dining hall with cups and Lucky Charms. (for those of you who are wondering, those are two different games)
12. I once smashed my right index finger between a metal stake and a sledgehammer, but somehow managed to escape with only "a flesh wound." No broken bone.
13. This week's "laundry day" was a complete failure, and I've been catching up all week.

This just in...

The Red Sox just laid down $51.1 million dollars just to be able to TALK to this guy.

No doubt they will sign him and then he will suffer a car accident on his way to Fenway, ruining his pitching arm, and colliding with Vinny Testaverde's taxi while he is en route to saving the Patriots' playoff hopes. (Did I just really type Vinny Testaverde's name?!)

Has the world gone mad????

Morning visitor

This fine gentleman stopped in this morning to ask if he could stay the winter with us. I told him no and ushered him out the door in a trashcan.

He was about two inches from toe to toe! *gasp* I tried very hard to be the super-cool mom of boys who doesn't freak out about these things. I think I succeeded. A better woman would have adopted him...maybe next time.

From the "Things I Never Thought I'd Hear Myself Say" category...

"Your brother is more important than the spoon."

Said this morning at the breakfast table after the 70,000th war erupted over a particular spoon. I won't say who the recipient was. I threw the spoon in the trash to prove my point. I later softened and put it back in the drawer, but it's on probation and is not allowed to come out for a good long time.

Thanksgiving Hymns

Here are two hymns we'll be singing around here in the next few weeks:

Come, ye thankful people, come

Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.

All the world is God’s own field, fruit unto His praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrow grown.
First the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God shall come, and shall take His harvest home;
From His field shall in that day all offenses purge away,
Giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast;
But the fruitful ears to store in His garner evermore.

Even so, Lord, quickly come, bring Thy final harvest home;
Gather Thou Thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,
There, forever purified, in Thy garner to abide;
Come, with all Thine angels come, raise the glorious harvest home.


We gather together

We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known.
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;
So from the beginning the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, were at our side, all glory be Thine!

We all do extol Thee, Thou Leader triumphant,
And pray that Thou still our Defender will be.
Let Thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy Name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!

His own set of wheels

(In case you're wondering about his clothing, it was 80 degrees here yesterday.)

While we're on the subject of music...

Jason Harrod will be playing
The Evening Muse
12/8/06 8:00 p.m.
3227 N. Davidson Street (corner of N. Davidson & 36th)
Charlotte, NC
704.376.3737
info@eveningmuse.com


Andrew Peterson, Derek Webb, Sandra McCracken, and others will be at
Mecklenburg Community Church
12/14/06 7:00 PM
8335 Browne Rd.
Charlotte, NC
704.598.9800
Cost: $10.00-$12.00
The second half of this show will be a performance of "Behold the Lamb of God," a Christmas piece.

From Andrew Peterson...

This Christmas will be the fifth consecutive year that I’ve performed what I hesitantly call a musical about the birth of Christ. The reason ‘musical’ doesn’t really work is that when we think of a musical we usually think of people dressed like donkeys and evenings full of badly delivered speaking parts. What I wrote is a concert that tells a story. There’s no speaking--only songs, some of which are intimate, some epic, some humorous, all with a purpose, which is to convey the true tall tale of the coming of God into the world.

What makes this bunch of songs unique is that I wanted to remind (or teach) the audience that the story of Christmas doesn’t begin with the birth of Jesus. Many people tend to forget or have never even learned that the entire Bible is about Jesus, not just the New Testament. So the musical begins with Moses and the symbolic story of the Passover (Passover Us) and works its way through the kings and the prophets with their many prophecies about the coming Messiah (So Long, Moses) to the awful four hundred years of silence before God told Mary she’d be having a baby (Deliver Us). After the song called Matthew’s Begats, which lists the genealogy of Jesus, the story picks up in more familiar territory with Mary and Joseph and the actual birth (It Came To Pass, Labor of Love). The final song is called Behold, the Lamb of God, which ties together the Passover and the beauty and scope of the story.

For the past three years the concert has been overwhelming from a spiritual standpoint. I can honestly say that I haven’t made it through one performance of the show without crying, which isn’t a testimony to the concert as much as it is to the power of the story of Jesus. And it really is that story that’s being told, in a new way.

DW concert

Monday night, David and I went to out to take in another Derek Webb concert. I know, I know, we're too predictable. This one was at Warehouse 242, which is a church here in Charlotte which (not surprisingly) meets in a warehouse. But the sound is good. Anyway, I'm rambling. Monday night's concert was just Derek and his 12-string...pretty sweet...although I missed Sandra's harmony in a lot of his songs.

Derek's latest album, Mockingbird, (which you can download for free here) is causing a stir amongst his devoted fans. As he puts it, "it is an album about ethics"...in life, in politics, and in war. He played most of the songs from Mockingbird on Monday night, the evening of the election. I found it really helpful to talk through some Derek's theses with David on the way home as we again considered how to vote. I don't agree with DW on everything, but I think he's asking a lot of great questions, and he's really making people think.

He also played two requests, one of which was David's choice, "Somewhere North of Here." He finished the night with the song below, "Lover," which I think I have decided is my favorite..at least for right now. :-) Derek says he wrote it when Sandra challenged him to "write a song about Jesus."



PS The best thing about this date was that David arranged everything..the tickets, the babysitting...it was a real treat for me!!

Last weekend...

I thought I'd better hurry up and post about last weekend before another weekend begins!
Last Friday night we finally had our Unit 1 celebration, which took the form of a Seder supper.

The boys (even Jonathan) wore their Israelite tunics.

They displayed and shared their projects from the first unit

I was pleasantly surprised at how attentive they were during the Seder. David was extra careful to explain everything so that they could understand.


Then on Saturday, we had our last game of the soccer season. Cameron scored his first goal! I, sadly, did not have the camera. (*smacks herself in the forehead*) We are sad that soccer is over but a bit relieved to have a portion of our Saturday mornings back.

 

Last night

...was so much fun! We had a good crowd and many people stayed to chat. The cider went quickly...the coffee, not so quickly. My homemade donuts came out great!

One of the funniest things to me was when one of my neighbors told me that when she saw a table in my driveway with a lamp on it, she thought I was cleaning out my garage.

I'm so thankful that God placed us here in our neighborhood. There have been reports of some bad teenager behavior in recent weeks, but a real feeling of community has emerged in response. It's obvious that there are many families here who don't want the neighborhood to go downhill. They want to look out for each other. They don't want to feel unsafe in their own yards...they want to be able to let the kids run around after school. It was a wonderful feeling to stand in my driveway last night, warm cider in hand, chatting with my neighbors and watching the kids play. It was dark, but I felt no fear for their safety.  

Strange but True.

Everytime we go away for any length of time, the kids get sick. Apparently the change in the air provides new opportunity for germs to take hold. So of course, on the way home from Massachusetts, we watched Jonathan succumb to a cold; Ben was quick to follow.

Ben usually begins and ends a cold with a nasty cough, so he was coughing all weekend long. During the day he was fine, but at night the cough would pick up again and make it difficult to sleep. Sunday night, David and I slept fitfully as we listened to Ben hack in the other room. Miraculously, he is able to sleep and cough at the same time. The OTC cough medicine we gave him all night seemed to be doing nothing.

So Monday morning, I planted myself in front of the computer and searched for a home remedy to coughs. We've tried the hot water/lemon/honey elixirs before and all it did was make the kids throw up (not exactly the result we were looking for!). I came across an article on the People's Pharmacy about Vicks VapoRub. Now, let me say first that I seem to have a mental block with Vicks. I always forget that it exists...or I forget that it's a cough suppressant, at least. So up until this point, I hadn't tried that remedy. I made a mental note to try it next. Upon further investigation, though, I found that the article actually recommended a slightly different approach. Here I'll quote from the website:

Another approach is to apply Vicks VapoRub to the soles of the feet. Socks will protect the sheets. We can’t explain how it works, but many readers vouch for it as a nighttime cough suppressant.

Pretty kooky, right?

IT WORKS.

I tried Vicks on Ben's chest and under the nose first that night. His cough was certainly lessened, but he still was coughing in his sleep every ten to twenty minutes or so. So I went upstairs and slathered Vicks on his feet and put socks on him.

He didn't cough once more all night long.