This Christmas season has been very unique for our family, as we have made many drastic changes and experienced challenges of “fitting in” to a different culture these last few months. As Christmas approached, we began to miss our family, our home, our special holiday traditions of decorating the tree or putting up Christmas lights, our annual cookie bake with our cousins, Christmas shopping, and even cuddling up next to the fire and drinking hot cider while gazing at the illuminated Christmas tree.
All of these memories and traditions are very special to us, but without these special Christmas blessings this year, we are realizing that the true joy of Christmas is in celebrating Christ. He is the reason for the season.
About two weeks ago, we went to see a local orchestra perform the Handel’s Messiah. We enjoyed not only the magnificent music, but also the message about the heart of Christmas, which is the birth of Jesus—Immanuel, God with us, the promised Messiah—who came to save His people from their sins.
This has helped us focus on the real meaning of Christmas as we are in a foreign country and Christmas is celebrated a little differently. Even though we cannot be with our family during the holidays or take part in many things that we did in the past, we are able to still enjoy Christmas, because of what our Heavenly Father has done for us through His Son, Jesus Christ.
May you have a blessed Christmas as you also remember and celebrate the birth of our Savior!
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is give: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace,” Isaiah 9:6.
Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage demand.
~Hymn, “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent”
5 comments:
You all look beautiful! Love your new dresses!
Thank you so much for the great reminder of what Christmas really is all about. It's so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the season and lose sight of why we really celebrate Christmas!
Your family picture is great. You all look lovely in your beautiful dresses!!
Merry Christmas!
Love,
Megan T.
I just looked at the new pictures you put up in your photo album. They're great!
Hi! We hope you had a Merry Christmas! I would have loved to go to the Messiah performance with you! We have tried to email you our Christmas letter - it was undeliverable. Do you guys have a better email address or a new physical address I could send it to? SDend it to me in email. Hello to everyone!
C Fuqua
Hey girls! One of you asked how we put together our Christmas video. Sam did it all. I cannot take credit for any of it! :) He's the expert at stuff like that. But, I know if you have a cable to connect your video camera to your Macbook, then you can do it pretty easily. We used the iMovie program & then uploaded it to our iWeb site like you guys have for your photos also. Sam is really much much better at doing it & explaining it. I'm sure he would be more than happy to help you all out someday. You should catch him on his lunch break or after work tomorrow in Clark! He enjoys video editing & making movies, so I know he would be honored to assist you with one.
Happy New Year!
Post a Comment