Thursday, January 05, 2012

Cozy

So, I first have to admit, I took some of these pictures in November intending to create this post. Well, the holidays caught up to me and I'm finally able to sit down for a minute uninterupted for a post or two.


I've love love LOVED having a fireplace in our new house!! Though it has been a very mild winter, I've made great use of it. Any morning that I know I'm going to be home for a while and the house is chilly, I build a nice cozy fire. Ty seems to be a little pyro and always investigates the fire. He loves to climb right up the the hearth and look into the fire.


Christmas tree lights on, a crackling fire, a soft blanket, a hot cup of coffee or tea... perfect setting for some great reading!


I read through "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus" in preperation for Christmas and was again reminded what a great advent book this is. If you don't have it, CHECK IT OUT! It's GREAT!

One of my favorite chapters is J.I. Packer, For Your Sakes He Became Poor. It may be out of the book, "Knowing God", in which I always try to read the chapter in Incarnation around Christmastime.


While reading, I came across this quote, which was very challenging for me... "That is not the Christmas spirit. Nor is it the spirit of those Christians - alas, they are many - whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian frineds, and bringing up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the sub-middleclass sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves. The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives o nthe principle of making themselves poor-spending and being spent - to enrich their fellow men, giving time, trouble, care, and concern, to do good to others - and not just their own friends - in whatever way there seems need." (pages 71-72)


I don't want my sole aim in life to be a nice middle-class Christian!!


Here is my little pyro, enjoying the fire. :)



Love my little man!




I finally finished our advent box (a 3-year endeavor) in time for December this year. And Libby is the perfect age to start with, too! She loved opening the box every morning and eating her candy treat while listening to the Bible verse for the day. Then we would read the same section out of one of her three Bibles. I look forward to doing a weekly family advent time next year, but wasn't able to fit that in this year. Never-the-less, I think she learned much about Christmas this year and she didn't let us miss a day!

So long for now!