Red-Nosed Caribou

What do you get when you have an Alaskan child who is deprived of secular Christmas stories?  You get to overhear the following  conversation.

My four year old was looking at a piano book earlier this morning and was on the page with the song Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  She noticed a drawing of Rudolf.  She pointed to his red nose and then with a bit of urgency and concern she asks,

“What happened to the caribou?!?!?!”

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After a short pause she answered her own question.

“Oh, he is blowing a bubble out his nose.”

Image via Wikipedia

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Do you think it is time for me to tell her the story??  LOL  Nah, overhearing these conversations is priceless!

Week in Review

It has been a bit crazy here on the home front.  Like so many there is always a lot going on this time of year and we are no exception.  I was even lazy this year.  I didn’t do all of the baking I usually do, I didn’t send out our annual newsletter or even very many Christmas cards.  I didn’t even cook Christmas dinner.  We had the tiniest Christmas ever as far as gifts go.  Hubby and I didn’t even get each other a thing.  It was a nice quiet Christmas with our children and we enjoyed it.

One of our daughters turned 8 years on the 26th and we had a nice party for her.  We had a few families over and the children had fun with the pinata in the living room.  I hope I do not find candy months from now under the treadmill or something.  I think she had a good day!

I will be lazy once again.  Rather than separate photos (one for Christmas and one for a birthday) how about one of the birthday girl lighting the Christ candle.

On top of all of this joyous celebration we have also had some trials!  If you follow me on twitter or facebook then you may already be aware of this.  One very recent Saturday we found the carpeting in my son’s room soaking wet.  The wall he shares with the laundry room was so wet is crumbled when touched.  Well, that leak is fixed, carpeting still drying out after a little more than a week and a wall to be replaced.  We then woke the following Sunday morning to a bulging and leaking ceiling out side of his bedroom door.  Another leak with a very poor patch job from the previous owner.  Hubby missed worship that morning replacing copper piping, leak number two fixed.  Then in the evening on Christmas day we found another leak.  This time it was in the bathroom which shares another wall with my son’s room.  This wall will also need to be replaced.   We found the piping not even connected!  This too has been repaired.  We are however still having issues with our water.  This week we will see about having our hot water heater, which we think is the culprit for all of this, either repaired or replaced.  Then we have walls to rebuild.

To top it all off we are passing around a cold……….

Oh well……

Count it all joy…….

Even amidst the struggle of leaky pipes and leaky noses we are still incredibly blessed!  I thank the Lord for his many blessings, his provision, his protection, and his never-ending faithfulness to his children!

So how was your Christmas worship and celebration?  Anything else “fun” happen during the past week??

A Visit to the North Pole

Christmas in July, I have often heard of those who celebrate Christmas in July and this year our family had a little taste of that. Even though it is August now, our family was vacationing in July and I was unable to blog about this prior to now. I was without a computer all week and it was actually a really nice thing, until I came home and had to clean out my email inbox! I know I had blog entries posting here but that was all set up in advance.

OKAY! Back to Christmas in July!

On our vacation we visited North Pole, Alaska.

Here is a little history blurb from the North Pole website.

In 1944, bon Davis homesteaded this area. Dahl and Gaske Development Company later bought the Davis Homestead, subdivided it and named it North Pole. The name was selected to attract the toy industry to manufacture articles made in “North Pole”. This endeavor failed to blossom, but North Pole has continued to grow. There is continued interest to develop North Pole as a theme city, “Where the spirit of Christmas lives year round”. Many streets bear holiday names: Santa Claus Lane, Snowman Lane, Kris Kringle, Mistletoe, Holiday Rd., Saint Nicholas Drive, North Star Drive, Blitzen, and Donnor. Street lights are decorated in candy cane motifs and many buildings are painted with Christmas colors and designs. The Santa Claus house, the “official” home of Santa Claus greets all visitors who pass through the city on the Richardson Highway. Live reindeer and Santa Claus himself are available for photographs year round. Each year the community starts the holiday season with a candle lighting ceremony and tree lighting event the first Sunday in December.

We visited the Santa Claus House.  It is really a big gift shop.  You can purchase Alaska related Christmas ornaments, letters from Santa, snow in a bag, t-shirts, and other gift shoppy things.  We enjoyed looking at all of the nativity sets and the live reindeer. I think that one of my favorite parts was actually the visit with Santa. Let me explain.  We really do not do much with Santa in our home.  We focus on Christ.  We also do not shun every tradition.  I love tradition as long as it is done with purpose and it can be used to point to Christ. Back to my explanation……..

We spoke with St. Nickolas ….  the man with the beard was such a sweet man.  He noticed the Biblical names of our children and a homeschool t-shirt one of the children was wearing.  He asked one of the children which church we attended and realized that my hubby is a minister.  As he was speaking to the children about where we worship on the Lord’s Day.  He said that it was great that we go to worship.  He said ” You know Santa loves Jesus too!”  He shared with us his favorite verses!  I was so thankful to have that man there to share with my children that even he thought that Christ was Lord!

I just want to end this post with a couple of photos and with the favorite verses of the North Pole Santa…..

Philippians 2:10-11

So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.