Finding Contentment

Merry Christmas!!!!!!

05:28 PM, Tuesday, December 25, 2007 .. Posted in Secret Sister .. 2 comments .. Link

Well, we are set. We will be closing on our home in three days and I am so excited! With Christmas and trying to do everything necessary to purchase a home in three weeks, I had to stop blogging for a while. But Christmas is over, the home buying process will be over on Friday, and I can't wait to get back to our regularly scheduled activities! Sometimes there is something to be said for routine days, don’t you think?

I had a message from my Secret Sister. Obviously, her identify is a secret so I don’t know who she is. But to answer your question, Secret Sister, I haven't received anything in the mail. I'll double check my address with Tamara but I'm not sure what the issue with the mail is. Anyway, I hope you had a Merry Christmas.

This was our first Christmas since our homesteading commitment, so even though we were busy with the house I tried to make some homemade gifts this year. I started by using Barb's recipe for Homemade Cracker Jacks, a.k.a. caramel and peanut popcorn. I gave a tin of these to each family on my Christmas list and to each person in my Sunday School class. These were a huge hit so I'll have to do them again next year.

Then I made some "gifts in a jar." I made brownie mixes, muffin mixes, etc. and used them, along with some of my homemade peach jam, to make up gift baskets like this one for each family on my list. The reaction to these was varied. I could tell that some of my more worldly or modern relatives didn't think much of them, while others loved them. However, these took a lot more time and effort to make then just going to a store and buying something, and they were frugal, too! I'll probably do something similar next year.

You can find recipes all over the place by googling "gifts in a jar." There are also books you can buy on Amazon just on that subject. I bought baskets and dish towels at the dollar store. I filled the baskets with shredded color paper, which I also purchased at the dollar store. Next year I'll probably just shred my own. I bought a yard of shimmery Christmas fabric for about $3 (I cut it into circles to cover the jars) at Wal-Mart and paid a buck each for a couple of bags of cinnamon sticks from the dollar store. I tied everything with raffia, which gave the baskets a great country look. I ended up making nine baskets, each with three jars and a dish towel.

Last night we had our annual Christmas Eve dinner at my MIL's house (pray for her, she recently broke her collar bone and is facing surgery). Today the kids woke us up bright and early and dove into their Christmas stockings and gifts.

DS, 4, opening one of his gifts this morning.

We just ate cereal instead of a cooked breakfast because we wanted to make it to our church's annual Christmas morning service. Usually only a handful of people come on Christmas day, but this year nearly the whole congregation was there! I love the Christmas day service. They are kept short and sweet but there is such a spirit of love there.

Then my brothers and their respective families came over for dinner and a gift exchange. I'll share some photos and then sign off. Merry Christmas!

From left to right: My older brother, my younger brother, one of nephews and one of my nieces.

Remember my two nieces that I kept while their mother was in the hospital? Here's the 2-year-old. And here is the preemie newborn, now almsot four months old. Aren't they both cute?