What to do with all those cards??

If you're anything like me, you had a lovely collection of Christmas cards that filtered in all through December. {We got even more after I took this picture too!}

I always get a little sad when it's time to take them all down, because all our friends and family spent time addressing them, and it doesn't seem right to just throw them all away. Thus, the scrapbook page of cards was born.

Christmas 2010

Christmas 2011

I just love seeing all the pictures (well...most of them. Some don't fit so I have to make some cuts.) and seeing how things have changed in a year. For example, the family in the bottom left (bottom picture) are the same family from the top left picture in 2010. Their sonogram is now a baby picture!

I also like to include our card, so I can see how our family has changed, year to year!

Our Christmas card from this year!

Of course the non-photo cards get cut up too, and become gift tags for next year's presents!

What do you do with your cards after Christmas is over?

Christmas in...August??

I have a confession. I've already started my Christmas shopping. In fact, I have ideas and, in a couple cases, people completely taken care of for Christmas gifts. Best of all, I've spent $32. I've spent $32 on 4 and a half people (I say half because one person's gift is only half completed).

I'm here to tell you that you may mock. You may think I'm crazy and ridiculous for starting this early. However come December, or the end of November, when you're thinking about doing your Christmas shopping, I'm going to be laughing, because I will be done. Well, I won't be laughing, because I'm kind like that, but I will be wondering what you were doing in August while I was completing my Christmas shopping!

PS Most of my gifts are courtesy of Swagbucks. It's a pretty awesome site. Oh, and Groupon helped a bit too.

So, am I crazy, or what??

The First Carpenter

Joseph. Do you ever think about what he gave up to become the father of Jesus? A child who was 100% not his, yet who he raised as his own. He is the one who taught Jesus to be a carpenter, his own trade. What must it have been like to know you are teaching God a trade that He created Himself?

When Joseph was pledged to be married to Mary, he probably thought she was a nice woman, and that they would have a routine life together. I don't kid myself to think they were in love, since they were betrothed, but I do think Joseph cared about her, after all he wouldn't have planned to "divorce her quietly" if he did not care. What must Joseph have thought when "it was discovered" that Mary was pregnant, before she even got married? I can only assume that she was pretty far along, at least far along enough that people noticed, by the time it was discovered. Joseph had every right to keep the dowry Mary's father gave him and turn her out to be stoned for what she did. Mary's life would have been ruined, and her family shamed. But he didn't do that. Joseph probably realized that people make mistakes, and he planned to divorce her quietly so she would be able to move on without the embarrassment of the whole village knowing what happened.

Of course we all know that God had other plans for Joseph, however. He was visited by an angel in a dream, verifying the story that Mary had told him herself. Now this is where Joseph amazes me the most. He risks his own reputation to marry Mary anyway, despite the obvious fact that she was carrying a child that was not his own. I wonder what the villagers thought. Did they assume Mary and Joseph had slept together prior to getting married? Did they think that Mary was just sleeping around and that the true father was somewhere out there? Either way, it didn't matter, not to Joseph. His reputation and Mary's were going to be ruined now, but he didn't care. He was going to be a dad...he was going to take on the biggest responsibility of his life. He was going to raise Jesus, God's son, as his own.

Talk about pressure.

Mary did you know?

I've been thinking a lot about Christmas, of course, because it is right around the corner. While it seems like it has snuck up on me, I am trying very hard to consciously remember the real reason behind Christmas.
Of course, everyone thinks about Christmas day, when Jesus was born. Some people think about the way Mary and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem for the census. But how often do you think about Mary and Joseph's life before the baby was born? Before the angel came to Mary and told her the news that would not only change her life, but change the world.
Think about Mary. She was probably about 12 or 13 when she became engaged to Joseph. Though the bible does not talk about Joseph in a lot of detail, I get the impression that he is an amazing man. For Mary, this was not unusual. Mary would have been helping her mother around the house, of course, but a grown (hard to imagine that 13 is grown) woman is better served starting her own family.
So, Mary was betrothed to Joseph. I have no idea what weddings were like at that time, but I can only assume that there was some amount of planning going on before the actual wedding, before the time that Mary and Joseph could actually live together. I don't know how Mary was feeling, but I can tell you how I was feeling in the days and weeks leading up to my own wedding. I was a bundle of nerves, anxious to start my new life with my husband, and I was (and still am) deeply in love with him. For Mary, things would have been slightly different because, being betrothed, she most likely wasn't in love with Joseph. But I do think she would have been nervous about setting out on her own. I can't help imagining her as a young child, setting out on her own. Joseph was probably older, but not significantly. Two children, starting out on their own.
Then, Mary has a visit from an angel. I'm not sure if this was a regular occurrence, but if my friend came up to me and told me they had been visited by an angel, I would have thought she was crazy, and that's just the beginning of the story!
If it was me, and an angel came to me and told me that I was going to have a baby, I'd be terrified. Just because Mary knew she was a virgin didn't mean everyone else did, too, or would believe her when she told them the story. Poor Mary, a young woman, suddenly pregnant, with the eyes of everyone in the village on her.
It's Mary who I like to think about when I ponder the Christmas story. I can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like to feel that baby growing inside her, knowing that he was God's son.
Whether you are a mother or not, whether you have carried a baby or, like me, never have, think about this story this year as you are unwrapping presents, and watching the joy of recipient's faces. Think about what Mary went through as she approached the time when she would give birth to the reason for this holiday.