Happy Birthday Jesus!
It’s been over 2000 years since that little baby was born in a stable in Bethlehem and placed in a manger, but the celebration of His birth is still the reason for the great holiday of Christmas. We received many wonderful Christmas cards and pictures from family and friends this year that are now hanging on our mantle or stuck to our refrigerator, but the one that stood out the most to me simply stated, “May the Hope in the manger be the Hope in your heart.” That’s so true! Jesus Christ is the reason we can have true love, joy, peace, and hope in our hearts - regardless of the circumstances surrounding us. And it’s not so much that He gives us those things but that He IS those things. When He lives on the inside of a person who has surrendered their life to Him, we begin to be transformed into His likeness and can enjoy life the way He meant it to be. That’s the goal of the Christian walk anyway - and the most fulfilling way to journey through life.
The apostle John put it this way in 1 John 4, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son [the 1st Christmas] as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.”
I know, many people who claim to know God aren’t very loving, and that’s unfortunate. That passage goes on to say “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” It’s sad that the most loving being in the universe gets such a bad rap from people who misrepresent him. To my brothers and sisters in Christ, let’s remember the greatest commandment Jesus left us with from Mark 12 as we move into a new year: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.” To those reading this who have been hurt by myself or another Christian, I apologize for living a lie and not accurately reflecting the kindness and goodness of God which leads people to repentance.
As I reflected on the last couple weeks, I just had to start with remembering WHY we celebrate Christmas. He is the reason that I got to take time off of work and spend it with my family, that many stores and homes around town have such festive decorations and lights on them, that TJ and Cammy and Kenny got to come down here from Colorado for a couple weeks, that Benjamin and Jonathan dressed up in red and sang in front of the church, that my family all pitched in to buy a Wii, that my boys can now be real Jedi’s since they have “real” light sabers, etc. Jesus is the reason for the season!
Yes, Christmas started for us on Sunday, December 21st with the boys singing in the childrens Christmas choir at church that morning. We had been practicing the two songs they sang for the previous month, and they got to shine that morning:
Our boys and their friends singing at church with their good friends Asha and Dallas between them
We got em on video too:
That was also the day we got to see TJ, Cammy, and Kenny. Kyle and Leah recently built, bought, and moved into a new home on the west side of Albuquerque a bit closer to family. So we all gathered at their place for the afternoon. The kids got to open their presents from Nana and Umpah then, and the Wii was definitely the highlight!
The boys loved the Wii boxing.
Jonathan put his whole body into it! We laughed at him so much, but it didn’t seem to bother him, because he knocked out and beat everyone he played. I’m serious, I don’t know if it’s the speed he hit with or what, but neither TJ or I could beat him, no matter how hard or sophisticated we tried to box.
On Christmas Eve we went to the Candlelight Service at our church, and it was fabulous! Jess had been practicing the Christmas music with the choir for over a month, and it was glorious. She did great and looked dazzling! Since my parents were running the overheads and a camera and Jess was on stage with the choir, I had all three of our kiddos with me. Thankfully our friends Courtney and Andrew were there helping me with them, but the only picture I got was from my cell phone at the end when some of the guys came out dressed up with top hats, canes, and jackets and did a really fun choreographed dance with some of the ladies. It was such a beautiful evening!
Candlelight Service
And speaking of my beautiful girls…
Christmas Angels
We had a wonderful Christmas morning at home with just the 5 of us. The boys actually let us sleep in til around 7:30, and then we had the yummy toutlerre (French meat pie) that Jess makes every Christmas which has been a tradition of her French Canadian side of the family for a long time. Then the boys got to open their stockings and presents. It was so fun! We made them wait to the end before they could open their main presents from Jess and I, and we captured the thrill of the moment:
My little Jedi knight
They have had so much fun with them over the last week 
We decided to let them take their light sabers to Nana and Umpah’s that afternoon with the understanding that they would have to share with their cousin Kenny. To everyone’s delight, we found that Kenny had recieved a sword that made real sword sounds when it was swung or hit things. Needless to say, there were some fierce battles, but no one last any fingers.
Kyle and Leah spent the afternoon with us with their beautiful 6 month old daughter Lilly, and we got some precious pictures of all 5 of the cousins. There are more pictures online at http://picasaweb.google.com/jcwoods1/Christmas_2008.
Cousins
Jess and I asked if we could spend the night there, and all five of us ended up staying there through Sunday evening. The boys had so much fun playing together, and we enjoyed the time with TJ and Cammy. TJ and I took our boys to Hoots Party Zone on Friday morning and met up with my friend Chris and his son Lincoln so they could all play on the inflatable toys and jungle gym. The parents get to play for free, and we did
That night the adults stayed up and watched “The Nativity Story“. It’s a fabulous presentation of what it might have really been like for Mary and Joseph living under brutal Roman power. It does a good job portraying how scandalous it must have been for a young teenage girl to show up pregnant while betrothed to another man. It also made me realize that it’s no Sunday afternoon stroll to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem with a woman in her last trimester of pregnancy. Whether you believe Jesus was the Son of God or not, it’s well worth seeing this well-produced movie ($35M budget) that depicts one of the greatest events in history. You can watch the last 6 minutes of it here.
By Saturday the 3 boys were all needing a bit of a break from each other, so Jess took Jonathan and Benjamin to the Albuquerque Aquarium. Jess and I have been fighting off severe soar throats since last Saturday, but we’ve both been on antibiotics for a couple days now and are feeling better thankfully. It has been a wonderful Christmas for our family in Albuquerque, and I pray that you have a wonderful New Year!
