What Is Christmas All About

"Let Adversity Make You A Better Person"

This morning I am sitting here on the couch with my body aching from yesterday's activities of putting up the Christmas tree and a few decorations.  I really hadn't had the desire to put up any decorations this year.  The kids are all grown.  Although Tom and Bob are still at home, they are gone alot.  Mostly it's just Jeff and I, and I kept wondering "why?"  I'll just go to the trouble of putting up the decorations and only Jeff and I will see them and then I will take them down in a couple of weeks.

But yesterday Tom had a couple of hours at home and I told him if he wanted to get the boxes of decorations down I would spend the day putting a "few" things up.  Well, it took me all day and my body ached from head to toe by the time I was done.  (For those of you who don't realize the effects of some of my health issues, this is one of the problems I have.)  But when Bobby walked in from work last night and said "oh, Christmas", it made me smile and seemed to be worth it.

My favorite part of my decorations is the nativity scene that I got when I was about 11 or 12 and I was a Merri-Miss or something like that in Young Women's back then.  It's made out of card board and you put it together.  It's very old, well since I'm old it must be too, but I've tried to keep it in good shape.  I always set it up under the Christmas tree with lights under it.  I couldn't find it this year and I was putting everything away and felt really sad that I wouldn't be able to have it out.  Just as I was ready to close the last box to put things away, there it was.  I know I had looked in all the boxes several times.  The addition of that to the decorations made all the difference.  Later, as Jeff and I sat alone, in our quiet little house where really it's just the two of us that see the decorations most of the time, he told me that when he saw the nativity scene it brought tears to his eyes.

Last Sunday the First Presidency of our Church had their Christmas Devotional broadcast and we had missed it because we had gone to visit my Mom and Dad.  We had recorded it though.  I'm so glad that we have DVR.  Anyway, I really had a rough night last night.  My body ached all night long and I woke up feeling very tired and wondering about all the work I put into decorating the house.  Instead of going to church (yes, I skipped church), I laid down on the couch and watched the Devotional.  It really opened my eyes to what Christmas is really all about.  It made me think about the Nativity Scene and why it should always be central in my Christmas decorations and if nothing else gets put up I need to take the time to put up the Nativity Scene.  I especially liked President Uchtdorf's message and how he told the story of How the Grinch Stole Christmas and it was wonderful how he brought out the meaning in that story.  If any of you missed the Devotional, here is a link to it:

First Presidency Christmas Devotional

My most favorite Christmas show in the whole world is the Charlie Brown Christmas.  When Charlie Brown asks "does anyone know what Christmas is all about" and Linus gets up on stage and the lights go dim and the spotlight goes on him and he recites the Christmas Story from Luke in his little "Linus voice":

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.  And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.  And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you;  Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

Then he picks up his little blue blanky and walks over to Charlie Brown and says "that's what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown" and sticks his thumb in his mouth.

Does it need to be any more complicated than that?  Christmas is the celebration of the birth of our Saviour.  How do we do that?  We don't need to make it a huge stressful ordeal of parties and lists.  Sometimes it's enough just to remember what He has done for you and your family.  IF you are able, then it's awesome if you can do more, but maybe that should be secondary, AFTER you have "remembered" what He has done for you.

Maybe the "list" that we should start with each Christmas is the list of our blessings from our Saviour.  Then the Christmas card that we write would be a Thank You to our Saviour for all that He has done for us.

May all of you be filled with the joy of the Saviour's love this year.  He knows you by name.  I know that for certain!

Until next time!  Becky 

Was It Worth It?

"Let Adversity Make You A Better Person"

Sometimes you decide to do things for yourself, and then other times you decide to do things for other people.  Either way, you make a plan and set the plan in motion.  Most times something gets in the way and there are often times when you might decide that it’s something you just don’t want to do after all.  But when it’s something that you know that is for the better good for other people, you just decide to do all that you can to see the plan through.  Well, that’s what Thanksgiving this year was all about.

Although Jeff is out of work right now because of his back surgery and our money is really tight, we made the decision to go to Oregon to spend Thanksgiving with Ryan, Jenni and Nicole.  They are living there while Ryan is going to school.  It’s a long ways for them to be away from family during the holidays.  Tom and Bobby had a whole week off of school that week and with Jeff not working, we decided to pool our monies together and see if we could come up with what it would take to travel the 13 to 14 hours to spend the holidays with them.

On Sunday night, November 21^st, we had everything packed and we wanted to leave the house by 7 a.m.  the following morning.  I had a hard time sleeping, so I spent the night on the couch listening to the wind howl outside.  I would get up every hour and each time I did I could see the snowdrift in our drive way get taller and wider as the biggest winter storm of the season made its way into our area.  I just kept wondering if we would be able to go.

 These pictures are of the drift in the driveway.  They are about 5 feet tall.

At 5 a.m. I got Jeff out of bed and we talked things over and wondered how we could get out of the yard.  I decided to get Tom and Bob up and if they wanted to shovel the driveway out then we could get the Trailblazer out and we could be on our way.  So, that’s what we did.  We pulled out of our yard at about 7 a.m. with a packed full Trailblazer, a winter blizzard in our faces and headed 800 miles for Klamath Falls, Oregon.

The roads were covered with snow and slick most of the way.  Somewhere between Pocatello and Twin Falls, Idaho our 4-wheel drive went out on us.  That was not good.  It didn’t cause any mechanical failures, but we just couldn’t use our 4-wheel drive. 

We would stop every couple of hours for a break because the going was pretty slow.  Jeff decided he wanted to do most of the driving.  It was hard for him not being in control of the vehicle in the yucky weather. 

About 9 p.m. we were on a mountain pass in Oregon, west of Lakeview, in a pretty bad blizzard  when we came upon a semi-truck that had jack-knifed and gone off the road and then blocked the road.  It had caused another truck to go off the road on the other side.  Traffic was blocked on both sides of the pass.  We found out it would be about 4 hours before a tow-truck could get there.  But it would be 3 or so hours to turn around and go back.  Most of the traffic decided to just wait it out.  We all stayed in our cars on the pass.  We were there for 6 hours.  The bathroom situation was interesting, to say the least.

Once we got through and to the next town everything was shut down and all the motels were full.  It was about 3 in the morning.  We did wake up a motel manager and he let us use a bathroom.  All of the gas stations were closed and the pumps locked, because they won’t let you pump your own gas in Oregon.  So, we went and parked in front of a launder matt and slept until about 5 a.m. when the gas station opened and we could get gas and get moving again.

We arrived in Klamath Falls at about 9 a.m.  The only time that our car even did any sliding on the road was when we were pulling into Klamath Falls, we were coming around a corner and it went sideways.  My heart did a little whipdy-doo!  It took us 27 hours to make a 14 hour trip. 

I will end this posting with our stay of four days there in Klamath Falls, so I will now tell of our drive back home.  The entire time that we had been there it had been quite nice, but Saturday morning when we got up to leave it had already snowed about 3 or 4 inches.  The entire drive back home we never went over 50 miles an hour.  The average was about 35.  The roads were treacherous.  Sometimes it was blizzarding, sometimes the fog was so thick you couldn’t see at all in front of you.  We arrived home Sunday morning.  It took us about 21 hours.  I know that we had little angels holding on to the car carrying us home.

It had been a constant blizzard at our home while we had been gone and our driveway was completely snowed in, but some wonderful neighbors had plowed us out so when we arrived home we were able to get in to our house. 

My brother had emailed me this picture that he took of our driveway while we were gone.  Someone had tried to clear it out but the snow was too heavy.  We were afraid we might have to come home to something like this.  Thank goodness we didn't. 

Now…..my question that I put to you at the beginning….”was it worth it?”…..Oh yes!  

 My Grand-daughter, Nicole Faith Muench

 

 From the front around the left:  Bobby, Ryan, Jenni, Jeff, and Tom

Playing games

To spend four awesome days with my son, my daughter-in-law, and my grand-daughter, it was wonderful!  To experience what Ryan is doing in his school studies, to hold my grand-daughter as she pats my hand with hers and calls me “grammy” and then to have her tell me she loves me, to visit with all of them….that’s what Thanksgiving, the holidays, life, is all about.  I would do it all again! 

It was worth every minute of it!

And now, just a little add on......

Since Tom, Bob, and Ryan were going to be out of school for a week and Jeff was not working, they decided to have a facial hair growing contest.  So, they all shaved on Thursday, November 18th and then they would see who grew the most facial hair by Friday, November 26th, before we had to leave.  Now, this is kind of a big deal, because Jeff has had a mustache ever since he returned from his mission and that's before I ever knew him.  I had never seen him without one.  I was really surprised that he agreed to it.  I learned that he looks alot like his Dad underneath that mustache and that his boys look alot more like him too.  Kind of funny, and it was fun!   So here are the pictures and I imagine all of you can guess who won.....

 Jeff before he shaved his mustache

Jeff after he shaved his mustache

Left to Right:  Bobby, Tom, Ryan, Jeff

Left to Right:  Bobby, Tom, Ryan, Jeff

So, don't let the gray in the facial hair fool you.  The boys bought their Dad an A&W Rootbeer Float on Friday for winning the facial hair contest.  He has his mustache back.  Tom and Bobby have shaved so they can go back to school.  I would imagine Ryan has trimmed up his mustache and beard and looks pretty nice!

 It was a lot of fun!

 Until next time!  Becky