Christmas Parties

We missed the Christmas caroling and social at Pastor Ken's house last Sunday night and the homeschool Christmas party at the bowling alley on Thursday due to me being sick, but today the boys attended three Christmas parties in one day. Their last Christmas party will be on Wednesday night at AWANA. My choir is also having a party on Wednesday night (we shall see if I'm up to going to that or not). This morning the kids and I were out the door before 8am because the kids' choir was singing in both services. My choir was also singing, but I am incapable of singing at the moment so I wasn't on the platform this morning. Let me say that I love singing Christmas music and it's really hard for me not to be able to participate. My voice is something I usually take for granted. I am thankful that usually I have no trouble talking as reading to the kids is one of my most favorite things to do. Hopefully I'll have my voice back before the Christmas Eve service. Nadia had a solo this morning as did her friend, Grace. I know I'm biased, but I think Nadia did a great job (aside from the fact I wish she would SMILE more). Oliver has come a long way over the past 2 years (plus 3 months) that he's been in this choir.




The kids went to Sunday School during the first service (after they sang), and Paul and I were in the first worship service. It felt weird to just stand there during all the songs (since I couldn't sing), so I opted to sign some of the songs. There is an interpreter for the deaf who signs the second service, but I was just doing it so I could feel like I was participating in the worship. During the second service the kids had a Christmas party with their choir after they sang in the second service. I usually am really late in arriving at my Sunday School class because the choir stays on the platform for the first 30-45 minutes of each service, but since I wasn't singing in the adult choir today I wasn't late to my class. Someone usually provides some tasty treats every Sunday (they take turns providing it), but today everyone brought in something. I brought a plate of sugar cookies the kids had made last Sunday. Usually I give plates of cookies to the kids' teachers, but I bought gift cards instead this year and they gave five out today and will give three more on Wednesday night.



Awhile back I had signed up for the Christmas luncheon today for the volunteers who work in the nursery through grade five. I haven't helped in the nursery (I'm too afraid it would stir up desires to have another baby), but I have taught from three-year-old to fifth graders. The luncheon was at 12:30. None of us were hungry because we had all eaten during the second service, but the kids still really wanted to go. They served baked potatoes, ham, rolls, peaches, and cookies. I just had a small piece of ham and a roll. They had door prizes, and I won a $15 gift card to Subway. Paul and the boys went to Dave's house for a Christmas dinner this evening. We were all invited. Since I am sick, I opted to stay home, and Nadia chose to do the same because she has been attending a middle school youth group (for grades 4-8) on Sundays from 6:00-7:30, and she wanted to attend tonight. She is supposed to wear a Christmas sweater. I didn't do nearly as much yard sale shopping as usual this past summer and haven't done much shopping in general for clothing so the kids don't have any Christmas clothes this year. This the first time that has happened in the past 10 years. All three kids have been asking me - where's my Christmas shirt, where are my Christmas pajamas (Ian asked -the other two do have those), where's my Christmas sweater (Nadia asked). I wanted to stop at the consignment shop on the way home from work on Tuesday, but I was driving by too early (the store wasn't open yet). So we improvised and Nadia is wearing one of my Christmas sweater vests this evening.




Since I was uploading the video from the second service this morning, I decided to get caught up and upload other videos. I won't post them all today, but I am posting some from their performance at Lycoming College on November 19. I didn't record the entire concert. I recorded portions of four the of the songs Nadia and Ian sang. Nadia was disappointed I didn't record any of "The Colors of Winter." Oops! I only recorded one of the eight songs from the K-2nd grade performance. Other videos that I am uploading (finally) are from Nadia's theatre camp performance in August and from making glass ornaments in Corning on December 1. I also tried to get caught up on editing photos. There were photos I hadn't gone through yet from the past few weeks. I'm grateful I don't need to do ANY grading for the next several weeks!



I expected to feel this big sense of relief after I submitted all the grades on Thursday. It didn't happen. Then I thought I'd feel it last night as I finished everything due this month for the university, but it still hasn't happened. I had the same thing happen last May. I kept telling myself I think I can, I think I can to make it through the spring semester, and I thought I would feel wonderful once the summer break began. It didn't happen that way. I kept waiting and waiting for my energy to come back, and it didn't. I went to the doctor towards the end of June, and she did bloodwork to see if I was anemic or had thyroid issues or whatever. Everything came back fine so she said I was depressed and gave me Prozac. I took the pills for several days and hated how I felt on them. I opted to just wait it out and hoped that by the end of the summer my energy level would return to normal. I'm hoping I am not experiencing deja vu right now. I tried not to push myself as hard this last semester as I did the previous two semesters. Hopefully it's just because I'm sick. Time will tell. This is one of the (many) reasons I'd love to return to being a SAHM. I love being a professor, but I am just juggling way too much, and I feel like I can't do anything as well as I'd like to. I always have to settle for "good enough" which is disheartening. I won't need to spend too much time working on university work over the next five weeks. That should enable me to do a better job with homeschooling, cooking, cleaning, etc.



As I was growing up, I don't recall lighting advent candles being a part of Christmas worship services. The three churches we've attended over the past 14 years have all included that as part of the worship service, and typically each week a different family would come up and read something on the theme for that week (ex. peace or joy or hope) and pray. This year our church has been doing something different, and it's been amazing. They have recorded a video testimony each week that focuses on that particular theme. Last week for example a couple shared about "hope" in reference to their experience losing their 22 year old son to a car accident almost 10 years go. This week a couple shared about their six year experience with infertility that finally resulted in the birth of their daughter earlier this year. That was a story I could definitely relate to. I wasn't the only one crying today during their testimony. All three stories thus far have been very powerful. I can't imagine our church will ever go back to do the readings as they were done in the past. I'm looking forward to next week's video testimony. It's wonderful to hear people share how the Lord has worked in their lives.