Traditions

Christmas is officially here! I love this time of year.  It's full of fun and meaningful traditions and the opportunity to love on your family and friends a little more!  Over the past few weeks I've been taking part in some "traditions." Some are silly and fun while some are serious reminders about the true meaning of this time of year, but all remind me how blessed I am.

An annual shopping trip with friends around Thanksgiving...12 years running.

Celebrating Thanksgiving and taking family pictures.

Decorating the tree while watching a favorite Christmas movie.

Reading Scripture for Advent. I follow this outline.

Drinking Peppermint Mocha creamer in my coffee out of my Christmas mugs.

What traditions do you and your family have around this time of year?

Merry and Bright

Christmas 2009 was wonderful! My first Christmas with my family since 2006 was so much fun.  It was spent enjoying the little ones, playing with new goodies (more on that to come), eating delicious food and relaxing.  I decided to just put a slide show of pictures up since there are so many!

But perhaps my favorite image of the celebration:

The kit's "m" was missing, and we sure did get a laugh!

Christmas Tour of Homes

Welcome to my apartment!  Thanks for coming by!

When I started decorating this year, I was so excited! My first Christmas in America since 2006!  My decor is a collection of things that I have added to through the years...collections that my mama started (Fitz & Floyd, for example), items from India and other countries that I have visited, ornaments from friends, etc.  I hope you'll see a little bit of me. 

The dining table

The kitchen

Living room

Favorite Ornaments: Indian lady in a sari from Pier One (my mama gave her to me when I was living in India)

My Radko ornaments.  I have about 10.  My parents started giving them to me when I was about 16.

Since I don't have a tv,  I watch my nativity instead!

My bedroom: A whimsical tin tree and Santa viewing the globe (India, specifically).

The Georgia room: a snow globe of Athens and UGA Santa.

That's all for now...I have so many plans, things I'd like to change or add, but I am so happy to share my little bit of Christmas joy with you.  Thanks for clicking!

May your days be merry and bright...

Yes,

It's been two weeks since I've written.  I'm horrible, I know.  I could list off several excuses, but I don't know if you'd buy it.  But, honestly, it's been two crazy weeks.  I want to post pics from Thanksgiving, but I didn't have my camera and my mom's was stolen (bummer!).  I have fun pics from an annual girls' shopping trip that I must post.  But, that will come later this weekend.  So, for now, I'll leave you with this:

Monday, December 14th.  Be there or be a Scrooge.

The Bug Has Bitten

The Christmas Bug has certainly bitten me.  I am so excited to be in America for the holiday season!

Some of my pretty Radkos ready to go.

More to come...

Backtrack- Christmas

So, I am going to backtrack a bit and fill you in on Christmas. It was great to have AYo here with me! We had such a good time and were welcomed by several families here to celebrate with them. Here we are in front of the Georgia Gold sign, a company that sells sweet tea.



On Christmas Eve, we visited with two families for dinner, had a white elephant gift exchange and sang Christmas carols for the neighbors. That night two other girls spent the night with us at my place.







On Christmas morning, I cooked my family's traditional Christmas breakfast of sausage casserole, biscuits and mayhaw jelly (brought over by my sweet mama back in November). Several people came over for breakfast. We exchanged gifts, ate breakfast and spent the rest of the morning listening to Christmas music and just hanging out. We went over to another family's home for a late Christmas lunch and had a delicious spread of Southern cooking! It was great.





Finally, Angela and I exchanged gifts from our respective geographical locations. It was so much fun!





I was able to Skype with my family several times and got to see cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents! It was a great Christmas, and I can hardly believe I'll be at home for the next one!

The Jesse Tree

I promised I would do a post that included our story set for the Jesse Tree and pictures. I actually haven't taken that many photos so far, but I plan to as we continue. Please lift us and our neighbors up. We'll be finishing the stories on December 23.



The Stories (with Scripture reference):
1. Creation: Genesis 1-2
2. Fall of Man: Genesis 3
3. Noah & the flood: Genesis 6-9
4. Tower of Babel: Genesis 11
5. God's promise to Abraham: Genesis 12:1-7; 15:1-6
6. Joseph: Genesis 37-50
7. Moses & the Exodus: Exodus 2-40
8. David made King: 1 Samuel 16:1-3; 2 Samuel 5:4; 7:1-28
9. Isaiah- The Promise of the Savior: Isaiah 53
10. Promised Savior's Birth: 1:5-24; Matthew 1:18-25, Matthew 1-2; Luke 2:1-34, 39-40
12. Jesus' baptism: Luke 3:1-3; Matthew 3:7-9, 13-15
13. Assurance of salvation: John 10:14-39
14. Jesus heals a blind man: Luke 18:15-17; 31-42
15. Triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday story): Luke 19:28-44, 47-48
16. The arrest and trial of Jesus: Luke 22:39; 23:13-21; Matthew 26:36, 45-67; 27:1-2. 11-14, 24-26
17. Jesus' execution: Luke 23:32-56
18. Alive! (Resurrection story): Luke 24:1-7. 36-47; Matthew 28: 19-20; Acts 1:8-11

A neighbor putting the ornament on the tree...
Friends, listening to the story...
We do a mini discussion time at the end about what we learned and what we liked about the story.
Cute little neighbor.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

While Mama was visiting me over here in South Asia, we decorated for Christmas. So...I thought I'd give you a peek at our cute little flat while participating in this bloggy Tour of Homes:

The view of the living room all decked out. Here, stars in windows or on porches show others that you celebrate Christmas. Don't you just love our bright South Asian home?


Here is our cute little tree. Again, this year we borrowed the tree from a family that is currently out of town. Most of the ornaments are a beautiful papier mache that is famous in a particular part of my country. Others are made from scrapbooking papers or sent from home.


This is our stairway...with hand-me-down stockings and a felt garland that I made. The tutorial is HERE at Anna Maria Horner's Web site. It's absolutely adorable!


I made this wreath from an embroidery hoop and scraps of fabric leftover from a cute Christmas tote I made for Mama. The ornament in the middle was sent over by Reba's mom.


This miniature nativity set was given to me by friends before I left to come to South Asia. It has been very helpful in explaining what Christmas is all about to neighbors and friends.


Here is our table. The tablecloth and napkins were bought at a fabulous department store here, and the napkin rings are made of pretty ribbon. The green center cloth is a silk scarf, and the little trees are from my favorite stationary store.


Finally here is our Jesse Tree. It's actually a bangle bracelet tree that we've converted to serve as the Jesse Tree. The Jesse Tree is a unique way to celebrate Advent through stories. Creation until the Messiah. We've been telling the stories every night in December to neighbors and friends. We made the ornaments, and each represents the story for the night. If you haven't heard of the Jesse Tree, please click on the following links for good explanations and sample story sets. One, Two and Three


We didn't follow any of these story sets in the links above, but I will do a separate post with our story set and pictures from our nightly get-togethers with neighbors.

That does it for the tour! I hope you enjoyed our South Asian Christmas decor!

Advent Conspiracy

As December begins, consider this.



adventconspiracy.org

Thankfulness

I'm thankful for...

- coffee first thing in the morning (with yummy flavored creamer).
- being able to tell my neighbors and friends what Thanksgiving means.
- turkey on Thanksgiving...even if the head and feet were still attached when it was time to cook it!
- a mama who will get on a plane and travel for 30 hours to see me.
- being able to introduce new people to this city and culture (my mama...just to name one).
- a cyclone in the nearby ocean, making it feel a little like winter, despite the rain.
- a daddy and brother back home that I know misses us and wishes we were there.
- an extended family that is gathering to celebrate and praise God for all our blessings.
- the Body of Christ, my "forever family," that takes care of me, encourages me and helps me run this race with perseverance.
- friends and a roommate here that truly manifest the love of Christ.
- the Truth that shines in darkness.
- Hope for the nations.
- His joy being my strength.
- the fact that I have so many things to be thankful for.

Praise Him! He is good!

"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18