Hannah got her first white Christmas this year! It started snowing just in time on Christmas Eve, and a bit through the night- just enough to cover the ground and make it extra cozy and Christmasy. It felt perfect, even when so many things about this Christmas weren't. A lot of the pictures below are "so 2020" like:
- lighting our advent candles alone in our living room while watching a livestream of the church service
- skyping with the Mack-Wheeler side of the family on Christmas Eve instead of the cousins playing in a treehouse decked out in Christmas lights like last year
- watching the Candlelight Christmas Eve service on TV and only seeing five candles lit during "Silent Night" instead of a hundred
- wearing masks around Nana and Do-Dad.
At first glance it's all so far from perfect.
Hannah's favorite Christmas movie is The Grinch. She loves it so much that she watches it throughout the year. There's a part near the end where the Grinch has just stolen all the gifts and decorations, thinking he's stolen Christmas, but Christmas...comes...anyway. The sun comes up and the Whos in Whoville join hands and sing. The light still shines into the darkness, and that's just what happened this year too. After all, Christmas is Jesus coming to us to redeem it all, even 2020.
So at second glance:
- lighting
our advent candles at home meant that Hannah got to be intimately
involved with the advent church traditions. We've done church from home
since March, gathering together every Sunday on our couch and watching
the livestreamed service. I've gotten to be Hannah's Sunday school
teacher for a whole year. I have loved helping her with her lessons that
the children's minister prepares, and doing her bible story activities
with her. It will be wonderful when our church has in-person services
again, but church at home has been so sweet and I will miss it when it's
over.
- skyping with my family- what an amazing, unexpected blessing of 2020. In March we started skyping with Kate and Luke every night to read a bedtime story together and to get the kids some face time with each other since we were all so isolated. Here we are 9 months later and we still skype with them every night to read and tell jokes. I did a little math, and over this past year we've skyped with them well over 45 hours. That's way more time "together" than we ever got in a normal year. Why did we not do this before?! Thank you 2020 for making us think outside the box. I hope we will continue this even when our lives are back to normal.
- only seeing five candles lit at the candlelight Christmas eve service meant that we were not alone- we were at Nana and Do-Dad's house watching the prerecorded service together. While we didn't get to see the glow of all the candles that usually light up the sanctuary, I love the thought of everyone from church lighting their candles in their own homes- a much better picture of what the church is anyway- taking our light and shining it out in the world, not all together in one building.
- wearing masks with Nana and Do-Dad... thank God for masks is what I say. They were a way to be selfless, a way to take care of those around us, and a way for us to still see close family safely. With Stephen working in the hospital we had to be extra, extra careful, and something as simple as wearing a mask made it possible for us to have Nana and Do-Dad in our bubble this year. I have been working from home since March and they have been lifesavers. Every Friday Hannah goes and spends the day with them and has a blast, and every Tuesday morning Nana comes over to our house and entertains and teaches Hannah for a few hours so I can get some work done. I'm so thankful for all the extra time they have gotten together!
***
As you can imagine, Hannah was super excited about Christmas this year and she got a whole loot of fun presents from Santa. Her big gift this year was a vet station where she can take care of her stuffed animals. She also got an Elsa dress, stuffed Olaf, a tie-dye kit, a soap making kit, a Moana doll, Legos, and lots of creative stuff like a headband making set and jewelry kit. She also got a microscope, a robot, and some really cool interactive educational games for the iPad. She's had so much fun playing with all her new stuff, and so have we! :) Stephen's big gift this year was a smoker, which I gave him a week early so we have enjoyed yummy dinners all week long while he was off from work!
Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!
Now on to the new year and Hannah's 5th birthday!!
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