Truth in the Tinsel, Day 24 (The End)

So, our Christmas Eve and Christmas were quite busy, so we didn't end up doing our final day of Truth in the Tinsel until Monday, the 29th.  Oh well!  I'm still glad we finished it up though.  The boys really liked the final craft which of course displays the climax of the Christmas story, the whole reason this baby was born...to die on a cross for our sins.  We read Philippians 2:6-8 which I feel is worth typing out even to instill once more in my own mind the power of what God did for a sinner like me...

"Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!"

Here are the boys beading the crosses out of pipe cleaner.  So simple, but they really enjoyed this one!

Here are the boys' crosses.  Tav's is blue and green.  Koen's is the one with red in it.

Well, that's it for this year's advent season in the Melder family technically. I pray that drawing out this anticipation of the gift of Jesus Christ to the world and the celebration of the incarnation will help us all hold on to it into the New Year and will daily affect our attitudes and actions.

Christmas Day 2014

Yay!  It's Christmas!  I love getting up before the kids and setting up for the day.  And my favorite is taking in the tree, with the lights, the presents bulging beneath...the anticipation just shimmers.

Our Christmas morning is what you would call "slow-paced" as American family Christmases go.  My goal is to stretch it out and savor the gift-giving, the fun of the day and the time with my family.  The boys don't know any different, so they do very well with the slow approach (which impresses us every year).  The boys came down for breakfast as usual at 8am.  As the final preparations were going on in the kitchen, Grampa sat down to the piano to play a few Christmas carols.  Perfect.  The boys (especially Penn) were his audience.

Before breakfast we do stockings.  I don't put a lot in the stockings, but it definitely helps the boy get out some of their pent-up need to tear into some presents after all the anticipation of this day.  Next year I need to do a better job of remembering the size of the stockings so everything fits in as a few items only fit halfway down.  Oops!

The boys smooshed in together and dove right in.  They opened each present individually, but I let them open at the same time at this point (see, later, they mostly open one at a time...notice it's all part of my strategy of dragging it out as long as possible!).  

Penn had no idea why this was all was happening, but was delighted to tear wrapping paper off of items he recognized and enjoyed (Play-Doh and Band-Aids).

Actually, one of Penn's favorite things all day was unwrapping his gifts small piece of wrapping paper by small piece of wrapping paper and taking the time to chuck them on the floor one by one.  I think he was on to my plan because his gift-unwrapping technique took a lot of time!

This one he was excited about the inside of the wrap job...Frozen Band-Aids...he just loves Anna and Olaf!! 

After the fun of the stockings, we had a delicious breakfast of pumpkin mini muffins that taste like donuts (here's the recipe, you have to try them!) and a yummy omelette Doug made.  Then there was the cleanup, getting Tav in an outfit, and final prep before present opening.  Don't you agree it's nicer to unwrap gifts when all the dishes are clean?  Well, ok, I think it's nice. =)  Around 9:15am we got started on presents.  The boys first wanted to give each other the presents they had purchased (with their own money) for each other.  So sweet!  Here's Tav opening his...

This face doesn't show it, but he LOVED the helicopter from Planes 2.  He's just concentrating on seeing how it works.  

Then it was Koen's turn.  Tav gave him Pokemon cards because he plays them/the game (we aren't exactly sure how it all works) with friends on the bus to and from school, but lost most of his cards in the wash/dryer recently!  

Penn wasn't getting a lot of gifts (because he didn't need much, plus he's little enough to totally not notice!), so he was the adults' big unwrap-it helper.  Here he is helping Gramma (open the gift from him, a "teeny, tiny spatula").

Then he helped me open a present that Koen has been saving since this summer.  When we were in NH, Koen collected all sorts of pretty, mostly white rocks from my favorite beaches.  He kept it a secret (in a bucket in the back of his closet) for all these months and remembered to wrap them for my Christmas gift.  He was so proud and excited to give them to me.  It was precious.

Later, Koen and Tavin opened a present from Nana and PopPop that had arrived in the mail awhile ago.  They know how the boys love to build planes out of just about anything, so they got them a build-your-own airplane model set.  This will be great for keeping busy on wintry days.  Thanks, Nana & PopPop!

Yet again, Penn was my right hand man in taking the Christmas morning slow.  He received a book from Gramma and Grampa and of course we had to read it right away.  Perfect!  Not to mention, it just melts my heart to see him snuggled up to my Dad.

After awhile it was Penn's turn again and this time he opened his gift from Uncle Phil and Aunt Leah.  Sorry about all the pictures, but he's so cute and Phil & Leah need to see their happy gift-receiver.

He's pretty happy with "Philbin," Uncle Phil & Aunt Leah.  Kisses for his new bear buddy!

Next, the big boys opened one of their joint presents from Uncle Phil & Aunt Leah.  It was a big hit!  They were so excited about the item and Koen especially was super excited that he and Tav got to work on it together.  He loves to jump into leader mode and teach Tav something new!

After another break or two for coffee refills, snacks (those mini donuts slowly diminished as the morning wore on) and bathroom breaks we got to Tav giving Doug his preschool-prepared handmade gifts.  He proclaimed that everything he made this year was for Doug.  Doug was hilarious opening up the sweet gifts.  They are certainly one-of-a-kind creations.  Good job, Tav!  Thanks for thinking so much of your Daddy and being so generous!

The card was to both of us.  It was a combo of real writing and scribble writing.  Tav was so proud.  He read what it said and said, "yeah, that's my writing."  So sweet.

After awhile, I gave Koen and Tavin their identical gifts from Doug and I...sleeping bags!  It was probably the biggest surprise gift for us on the giving end.  We had no idea how excited the boys would be about them.  They crawled right inside and hung out in there for several minutes (which was a nice quiet break after all the excitement and bounding around that had been happening all morning.  I think they enjoyed the rest too!).

One thing that was a little different this year is that Aunt Abbie is usually here with us and this year, she and her husband, Zac, went to Hawaii!  We were super happy for her, but obviously missed her very much since she's a usual part of our Christmas celebrations.  She was super thoughtful amidst her demanding December schedule and sent sweet gifts to all of us.  Particularly she made a beautiful photo book for Mom and Dad exhibiting the wedding photos.  They enjoyed it so much.  Great job, Ab, it was a hit!

The boys were super happy to see Aunt Abbie (Penn says her name perfectly now and he loved pointing her out in every picture!).

Uncle Phil sent a special present to Dad.  A new cover for his Corvette.  Dad didn't have a clue, so it was fun to see his reaction.  I tried to catch his happy surprise for you, Phil!

Koen and Tavin had been dying to give the present they picked out for Penn all morning.  But since Penn was so content without many presents, we saved it until closer to the end when he was tiring of just watching and roaming around.  Just as we suspected, it was a big hit.  Good job, Koen and Tavin, you are such sweet brothers to so happily give good gifts to your little bro.

Doug and I had fun giving the boys some Lego sets to add to their collections (Tav is just starting, so that was really fun).  They were definitely pleased!

The boys finished up their present opening with a cool present to both of them from Uncle Phil.  A book that outlines Uncle Phil's jet, the Eagle.  Pretty special!  The boys are both excited to dive in and check out all the details. There are diagrams and descriptions about everything.  Just what they needed to quench their curiosity about this cool job Uncle Phil has!

One of the last presents of the morning (well, when it was all said and done it was about 12:30pm), was a photo book I had made for my Dad.  It was a little ode to the sailboat he had owned for the past 3 decades or so that previously had been his father's, The Maranatha.  This past Fall he sold it and although it was most definitely the right decision at this point, I knew it was hard to say goodbye to such a meaningful token of so much of what my Dad loves in life.  So, I thought a photo book might be a nice way to capture just a token of the memories the boat provided all of us who enjoyed it.  It definitely struck a cord with Dad and I was thrilled he enjoyed it so much.  I love you, Daddy!

Well, that's it for pictures of present opening.  Sorry for so many, but we had so many thanks to document along the way from family near and far, it was necessary to show the pictures. =)  After opening presents, we had a fun, snacky lunch.  Then the little guys slept the afternoon away (well, I think Dad and Doug both caught a cat nap at some point too).  Mom and I did some meal preparations and organizing after the morning's fun.  Koen hung out with us adults for the afternoon as usual, doing his thing.  Again, it was just nice to be together all under the same roof.  After the little guys got up and had a blast playing upstairs with Grampa, it was time for our delicious Christmas dinner.  Here's a shot of most of the family around the table ready to dig in!  It was so good!

Last year was our first time doing a big turkey dinner to close our Christmas Day.  I was totally against it because I figured it would be a lot of work on such a special day.  But what I found last year was that with Mom, Doug and I working on aspects of the meal and the fact it was the evening, it wasn't too much work for anyone.  Then, it gave us all something to look forward to after the hype of the exciting morning was over.  The point was only further proven this year.  Our time around the table was a great extension of our day together and a wonderful end to a wonderful day.  Thank you to Gramma and Grampa for making the trek to be here to make our Christmas extra special.  And thanks so much to all those loved ones who sent gifts our way to be remembered to us today.  We have so much to be thankful for and reflected on so much of that on this day.  Merry Christmas everyone!  Love, The Melders

Christmas Eve 2014

First of all, the day after my parents' arrival was so deliciously relaxing and different from the norm. Doug had to work, but my parents and I and the boys, just enjoyed being together, around the house and not really having a long list of to-do's.  It was fantastic.  Christmas Eve was much busier, but after the restful day before, we had the energy for it and wouldn't have wanted to miss any of it, it was a great day.  

In the AM, before the Christmas Eve service at 11am, we prepared for the ham luncheon we'd be serving after church for our family as well as the Troxells (Uncle Nate, Aunt Megan and kids).  We also got all ready for church.  The boys love to dress up like Daddy and this service, Koen had the special job of reading Scripture for Doug in his sermon, so he especially was dead set on looking very handsome.  Here's my handsome, happy crew with Gramma and Grampa at our departure for the service.   I included two of the several shots.  It's not easy getting 3 excited boys to smile at the same time!

The service was beautiful.  It was one of the highlights of my Christmas holiday for sure.  So honoring, so joyful and just lovely.  I'm sure since I'm the Pastor's wife, this seems bias, but if you had been there, I think you would've agreed.  I wish I could post a link to the whole service here.  It was great.  The boys all stayed up into Doug's sermon (although Penn did go down to play in nursery for the majority of the sermon), but Koen listened attentively to his Daddy.  And Tav was just happy to be sitting between Grampa and Koen, that he was content to be upstairs.  There was a kids moment in the beginning of the sermon that Tavin and Koen both enjoyed being a part of (I got this pic from someone else, I wasn't that Pastor's wife that took pictures of her husband preaching, don't worry).

Koen did a lovely job reading the Scripture.  I was so impressed with his confidence to stand up and speak in front of everyone.  Again, this pic is from a friend (I didn't want to embarrass Koen and take one myself!).

After the beautiful service, we gave Christmas hugs to lots of friends as we exited and then headed home for our yummy lunch and relaxing time with friends and family.  This is becoming a fun tradition for both us and the Troxells and I look forward to keeping it going too.  Here's a picture of Doug relaxing with Tav and Koen after the meal.  It's so nice Doug gets to come home in between the two Christmas Eve services to be with us.

We had a little gift exchange between the boys.  The Troxells always get our boys the most beautiful and creative books.  This year Koen got one that sort of leads him through how to write his own fictional story about himself.  He's excited to dive into it (even started some of the activities that afternoon).

Tav was very interested in what Alex got from us...a periscope for spying.  Don't worry, Koen and Tav got their own periscopes in their stockings the next day.  But it was fun to see how interested they were in the toy beforehand (sorry about the little trick, boys!).

The Troxells left around 3pm.  Doug and Koen went back to church a little before 4pm to prepare for the 5pm service.  That left Tavin here to hang out with Gramma, Grampa and I (Penn was taking a long, hard nap!).  Tavin has been waiting since Gramma's mid-November trip to play more of the game, "Sorry!" with her, so they got right to it.

Koen was apparently amazing at church that evening with Doug.  He helped set up for the service, then he handed out notes as people came in.  Then he again did his Scripture reading and sat through the whole service and then at the end he helped pass out the gift to the kids and recollect the candles.  Great job, Koen!  I know you made your Dad very proud and were such an encouragement to him during his holiday work day.  By the time Koen got home, it was time for the boys to eat their dinner.  Then we had some fun catching up on Christmas books.  We are a little behind getting through all the books I wrapped, so all 3 boys got to open one on Christmas Eve.  It was a sweet time of reading (even if they were a little long and the boys got to bed a little later than anticipated).

After the boys in bed, it was Santa's workshop in the living room.  I had wrapped my parents' presents before they arrived, but had saved the boys for closer to Christmas to keep the boys from guessing/shaking/ruining the surprise of it all!  Tuesday night I had finished most of their gifts, but Christmas Eve was the final crunch time and I got through the rest of the presents and the stocking stuffers (just a few things for each).  Dad and Doug had all their wrapping to do as well, so they were also busy!  It was a fun night of anticipation, even if it was exhausting!  I always put off going to bed on special nights like this though, I just don't like to see Christmas rush away, I love to savor every moment.  But there's a point where a pregnant momma of 3 boys, soon to be 4, has to quit and get some sleep!

Truth in the Tinsel, Days 21, 22 and 23

Day 21 we made a star (obviously we talked about the star that led the shepherds and wise men to Jesus).  Tav's is red, Koen's white.

Day 22 we studied about the wise men and how they were led to Jesus.  We talked about how obedient and brave they were to listen to the Lord and not go back to Herod and tell him the child King's location.  The boys loved cutting out the 3 wise men connected and then decorating them with glitter glue (of course).

Day 23 was about the gifts that were given to Jesus as well as the fact that He is the world's greatest gift ever, for this one we just did the simple "color in" ornament option.  

Stay tuned for the final day of Truth in the Tinsel, which this year we will be doing after Christmas.  Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were just too busy to squeeze in the final activity!!