A Must-See Christmas Movie

I just watched "The Nativity Story" last night.. wow, it was fabulous! If you haven't seen it then I encourage you - check it out! It is the story of Mary and Joseph in the two years before Jesus' birth. They did a great job keeping to the text and was historically accurate. It really makes the whole story come alive... My sister Carrie found it and kept saying wow this is an excellent history-teacher! So go watch it! It's on HBO thru December (and on Comcast's On-Demand for HBO), and I'm sure it's available at video rental places
http://www.newline.com/properties/nativitystorythe.html

I'm Getting A Brother!

Being the eldest of 4 girls I always wanted a brother.. with each pregnancy we'd wonder would this be when we get a brother? And since my dad's name is Ernie and we were brought up on Sesame Street we always thought if there was a boy that naturally he'd be named Bert! :) (for some reason Dad never got as much of a kick out of that as we did!).

So it is with great excitement that I announce I'll be getting a brother.. no, my parents aren't having a child - my sister Sarah is going to marry Mike, so he'll become our brother (in-law)... She was down in Orlando over the weekend and he proposed at sunset (after they had watched sunrise on the east coast of Florida, gone ice skating in Orlando and sunset on the west!) and she said yes! Get this - in his proposal he said the day captured what he hoped for: to spend sunrises and sunsets with her and to live through seasons of warmth and sand and seasons of cold and snow and ice - wow, what a cool thoughtful guy! So yeah! They are planning an end of March wedding in Orlando.

We really like Mike, and just hope he realizes that not only is he getting a wife but 3 sisters as well! This is going to be fun!

Anticipation and Advent

What is it about Christmas that is so fabulous? The Christian answer is Jesus, of course (interesting how He is the answer to just about everything!!)... to the average American it's about Santa Claus, gifts and a season of being with family and friends - of snow and carols.

One of my friends is great about celebrating Advent. I wish I did. I wish I had an advent wreath that I lit every week as a reminder of the 4 weeks before Christmas. Because I think it's the anticipation, the excitement before the event that makes Christmas. I mean you know you're going to be happy on Christmas Day, but then there's that let down, the "rats it's over" time right afterwards when it's time to take the tree down, put the decorations away, and get on with real life.

My birthday falls at the end of the month and I have sort of declared the entire month of April as my "birthday month". I love it when holidays and special events happen at the end of the month because it gives me all month to look forward to it. The 4th of July always catches me by surprise because I never think about it until July and then it's the 4th already! I love it that Thanksgiving (my favorite holiday) and Christmas both happen at the end of their months, and that they are back to back - so then in my mind the holidays start Nov 1.

I think anticipation is a gift. But in our culture we're always in a hurry and we don't anticipate. We rush. We hurry. We (I!) speed. We fly through life instead of just relaxing and enjoying it. We take short-cuts to get what we want, when we want it.

So this Christmas season, before the 2nd advent-wreath candle is lit, I am going to make a stand.

This will be the Christmas that I revel in anticipation.

That I enjoy the waiting,
without having.

Because I am not waiting in vain. The One I hope in is faithful. He will come through - He will deliver. When we anticipate something that God has promised, there isn't the let-down when it happens... because with Him the anticipation is not as good as the real thing!! It's not like microwave popcorn that smells better than it tastes (especially since I eat the 97% fat free kind!). No! The Lord God is all-mighty. All powerful. He created sunrises to color the sky in brilliant colors before the sunlight shatters the darkness. And He loves it when we trust Him. When we believe that He will come through for us.

Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished! - Luke 1:45

May you believe and be blessed.

Christmastime in New York!

Greg and I took Friday off work and headed up to New York City for a fabulous weekend of getting in the holiday spirit. I was shocked to learn that he had never been to NYC over the holidays... I have been blessed to be able to travel a lot and have enjoyed seeing how different cities "dress up" for Christmas - Paris is gorgeous, Geneva Switzerland is beautiful, Budapest has a cool holiday market, but New York just seems the most quintessential Christmas city to me.. perhaps it's all the movies and TV shows - but something about standing in Rockefeller Center and looking up at that big ole tree and seeing the ice skaters swishing along below.. sigh... it's magical!

We had a fun mix of different activities - Friday we walked A LOT around Midtown, just enjoying the sights and sounds. We had lunch and walked through MoMA (the Museum of Modern Art). Greg is more of a fine arts vs. modern arts fan, so as he said if it wasn't for the Impressionists paintings it would have been waste of time! Now yes, there are some strange things called art, but it was interesting to play the game - which in this room would you want to hang on your wall.. some rooms were harder than others! We stumbled upon a cool Italian wine bar/restaurant by Columbus Circle that had a cozy wood-paneled bar area where we enjoyed wine and hot cocoa (can you guess who had what?!?!). Then we went to Time Square Church for their Friday evening service. Unbeknownst to me the normal service had been replaced with a Young Adult service (I think it had started in the past month) - so us over 30s were ushered upstairs - which was fine. The service was amazing! We loved the worship - the music was loud, the songs high energy and the heartfelt passion on the multitude of different colored faces in the building was beautiful. They did a drama and the sermon was inspiring. Thankfully they did about a half hour of worship after the service, but when they finally ended we were like no we don't want to leave... Greg said to me wow, that was great - we HAVE to come back here again! Yeah God! Thanks! So if you're in NYC make sure you check out services at Times Square Church, or Brooklyn Tabernacle, or Redeemer - there are a number of really cool churches in the area that will bless your socks off!

One of the most exciting parts of our whole weekend was going to dinner - at 10:30pm! Greg was all bummed that we didn't get a picture of the clock as we were leaving for dinner! I was all excited because we changed - I got to get all dressed up for dinner - like being on the cruise! We walked to a little Italian restaurant just a block from the hotel, and were tickled when we saw that they had live music - some soft jazz with a big ole bass and a few other instruments - very cool! The picture of us at the table was taken after dinner - it was 12:30am!

On Saturday we went over to Tavern on the Green to see if we could have breakfast - let me tell you, that is one place you don't just walk-in without a reservation - oh well!.. so we left and headed west, enjoying a stroll through Central Park.. there was a race going on - perhaps a 5K or 10K, so it was fun seeing the runners go by - and others were out exercising, walking their dogs, or just enjoying the beautiful day... I was especially pleased to see so many leaves still on the trees - and delighted when a breeze blew some of them off - looked like confetti! We were headed to the Frick Museum, which is a museum in Mr Frick's home that was built in the 1910s - what an amazing house complete with an atrium! The art collection was extensive with a wide variety of things, but I just enjoyed looking at the house - some rooms reminded me of Versailles (smaller, of course!). Then we walked down Madison Avenue gawking at the high-end stores and wondering who in the world shops there on a regular basis... realizing we were out of our element we jumped on the subway and headed to Macy's where I wanted to do some shopping. Greg was gracious enough to find something to do, things to look at, and after about an hour we met up and walked down to Bryant Park where they have ice skating and a Christmas bazaar/holiday market with shops set up. Picked up some pretty cashmere scarves for just $10 and then decided we'd had a great time but that it was time to head home... so we took the subway back to the hotel, picked up the car and by 5pm were on the NJTPK, and back home by 7 - can't beat that!

The timing of everything this weekend seemed so "ordered" - so smooth - the Lord placed some wonderful boundary lines for us and He ordered our steps beautifully. We had such a great time that we hope to make this an annual tradition!