joy in our home

Temperatures in the thirty's all week, and windy, make it easy to hole up at home.  And there is no time of year when it is more pleasant to do so than the Christmas season.  Warm sweaters, a candle lit, one of my many Christmas CD's on the player.  And, especially,  I love the decorations...ours probably run the full gamut from tasteful to tacky--but each has a story and each brings me much joy.  And truly, isn't that what Christmas is meant to do?

Joy is in children's excitement, and talk of Santa, gifts purchased, carols sung.  Joy is my little guy who this very minute is in his bed (supposedly napping!) and I am hearing "Glo...oooo...ria" (as in "Angels we have heard on high") which is so very sweet to my ears.  Joy is them learning a little more of the story of Jesus's birth each night as we do our Advent devotions.  And joy is my own meditation on a holiday that celebrates much more than a miraculous virgin birth...it celebrates GOD WITH US.  And if our God could make himself a man in order to have a relationship with me, then certainly he could do it in any miraculous way he chooses, including a virgin birth.   Christmas is a time for joy.

And so I share with you some of the joy I find in our home right now:

I pray you are finding JOY in this season of Christmas!