Crazies at Christmas

I decided to venture of with only 3 days til Christmas and was in shock of the craziness of Christmas. The lady in front of me at a store was literally screaming at the poor salesman today because she lost a coupon.  Now I understand the glory of the hunt when a coupon saves you that precious dollar or two.  This lady obviously was so worried about money that she sent her daughter back to hunt for this coupon to save a dollar on some toy.  When the daughter returned with no coupon, the lady proceeded to yell at her until she reached into her purse for her wallet- with the coupon inside.  I sat in the line thinking about how with this economy how much each penny is worth and yet we still because crazy consumers at Christmas.  We loose sight of what is really happening.  The lady in front of me lost sight of everything all for this one little piece of paper to save a few bucks.  We all seem to have lost sight of the True meaning of Christmas. We need the latest game, the cutest sweater, the newest movie and Christ gets put aside.  A baby who had nothing and came into this world to save us...for what...so we could forget His day.  And what are we storing up for??  As Danny and I were cleaning a closet the other day, I was shocked by all the clothes that I have, yes I have had some of them since college but still, the amount of clothing is 100 times more than most people of the world.  What am I storing up for?  What have I become a crazy about this Christmas?
Children change Christmas.  One special child many years ago changed Christmas forever and I want to pass that one to my child.  Yes I still want to get him that fun gift and yes I will still beg Danny to open presents before Christmas Day but I need to step aside and remember in all this hustle and bustle that God made the ultimate sacrifice.  As a mother, I could not even imagine giving of my son and yet God, in all His glory, made that ultimate sacrifice knowing full well that the ending would be His son's life.  Yikes...that is the ultimate Christmas gift!  Sacrificing everything to save the world.  How it must pain Christ to see us down here not remembering the Gift that He gave to us!   That is my new focus this Christmas...putting Christ into Christmas and taking the crazy out of it!

Merry Christmas to all of you and may you remember the true meaning of Christmas this whole holiday season and throughout the year!



Walking in the Winter

Bryce is offically a walker.  We are now toddling around the house causing all types of mischief.  He wants to walk more and more at stores and such and tries running with Benton at any chance he can. Finally at 13 months we can say that he is walking.  Our fears of him being the only kindergardener who crawled is now gone!  :)  It is adorable how he walks and is so proud of walking across the room then smiles brightly to make sure we saw him walking.

We went to his second parade of lights.  The first year was super cold but this year was chilly but fun. Bryce loved pointing at Santa and all the twinkle lights around town.  He loved the giant reindeer balloon as well. I was thanksful that I was not the one holding up a balloon like I did several years ago. The holidays are so much fun with a kiddo.