I won't be near my computer for a while b/c we're traveling to Kansas for Thanksgiving! I thought I would get this started now though as the Christmas songs will be all over the place by the time I get back.
What is you favorite Christmas song?
What is you LEAST favorite Christmas song?
To get the ball rolling I'll start with mine. Favorite is O Holy Night. I love every version of the song that I hear. I just reminds me of the great reverence we should have before Jesus. Least Favorite is Wonderful Christmas by Paul McCartney. Musically, it hurts my head. Also, least favorite is Last Christmas. The song isn't even about Christmas. I also just learned that is it sung by George Michael and Wham! Yet another reason to dislike it for me.
Now it's your turn. Give me both sides of the spectrum, favorite and least favorite. Have fun!
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Monday, November 20, 2006
Apparantly we aren't very thankful
This is my determination as to why the Christmas (or if you're a secular progressive, the "Holiday") season now starts in October. I went shopping the day of Halloween to find cheap candy, only to find that the only candy being sold was Christams themed candy.
Wait a minute! Did I miss something here? Isn't there another holiday between Halloween and Christmas? And even if there wasn't, one would think that it would be dismissable by the common public if the retail stores would wait at least a week or two before the Christmas displays had to come out. This is not the case. Christmas displays are now literally coming out the day of Halloween.
There are two things that I see wrong with this:
#1 The first thing is that we start to exclude Thanksgiving as a holiday. What ever happened to planning a feast, getting together with your family, and counting the blessings that the good Lord has passed down to you? Is doing that not deserving of our time?
#2 The second problem with 8+ weeks of Christmas is that I think it starts to water down what the real celebration is all about. Last I checked, the spelling of the holiday still includes the name of Christ. Yet too often, the common public, including those who claim to be Christians, think of this holiday as Presentmas, which is just giberish. Rather than celebrating the birth of our Saviour, we celebrate what feels good to us, and that's showing off what kind of gadgets we can afford or bragging about how long we waited in line for a PS-3. Celebrating a "season" rather than a holiday greatly downplays the meaning of the holiday itself.
I was strickin with a bag of mixed emotions Thursday night driving home from class. I was flipping through the radio stations and I came across a station that had already started it's 24/7 birage of Christmas music. That means that this station will be playing Christmas music nonstop for at least 39 days! That's even longer than Ramadan! While I love Christmas music, especially the Christ centered songs, I find that this is all part of the ploy of spreading out the "Holidays" and downwatering the day we celebrate Jesus' birth.
While the economy hops itself up on retail sales during the "beat-the-rush", "black Friday", "holiday" and "last minute" sales, I take complete and great joy in knowing that I can celebrate the birth of my Saviour each and everyday of the year. While it does feel good to give to others, and that is what we should be doing, try to focus on who programmed us to feel this response. For those of you confused, that would be God. Also focus on the spelling of this holiday. I'll give you a hint, it starts with Christ!
Wait a minute! Did I miss something here? Isn't there another holiday between Halloween and Christmas? And even if there wasn't, one would think that it would be dismissable by the common public if the retail stores would wait at least a week or two before the Christmas displays had to come out. This is not the case. Christmas displays are now literally coming out the day of Halloween.
There are two things that I see wrong with this:
#1 The first thing is that we start to exclude Thanksgiving as a holiday. What ever happened to planning a feast, getting together with your family, and counting the blessings that the good Lord has passed down to you? Is doing that not deserving of our time?
#2 The second problem with 8+ weeks of Christmas is that I think it starts to water down what the real celebration is all about. Last I checked, the spelling of the holiday still includes the name of Christ. Yet too often, the common public, including those who claim to be Christians, think of this holiday as Presentmas, which is just giberish. Rather than celebrating the birth of our Saviour, we celebrate what feels good to us, and that's showing off what kind of gadgets we can afford or bragging about how long we waited in line for a PS-3. Celebrating a "season" rather than a holiday greatly downplays the meaning of the holiday itself.
I was strickin with a bag of mixed emotions Thursday night driving home from class. I was flipping through the radio stations and I came across a station that had already started it's 24/7 birage of Christmas music. That means that this station will be playing Christmas music nonstop for at least 39 days! That's even longer than Ramadan! While I love Christmas music, especially the Christ centered songs, I find that this is all part of the ploy of spreading out the "Holidays" and downwatering the day we celebrate Jesus' birth.
While the economy hops itself up on retail sales during the "beat-the-rush", "black Friday", "holiday" and "last minute" sales, I take complete and great joy in knowing that I can celebrate the birth of my Saviour each and everyday of the year. While it does feel good to give to others, and that is what we should be doing, try to focus on who programmed us to feel this response. For those of you confused, that would be God. Also focus on the spelling of this holiday. I'll give you a hint, it starts with Christ!
Monday, November 06, 2006
Operation Christmas Child
It's that time of year again! It's time for the annual tradition that Sandra and I celebrate when we participate in the Operation Christmas Child program. Each year we take a shoe box and fill it to the max with as much fun and useful items as we can cram! This is the 3rd year that together we have filled a shoebox each to give to children around the world who are less fortunate and who don't know Jesus as their Savior. Sandra has participated in this wonderful yearly ritual for many years, but I only discovered it a few years back. It's headed by Samaritan's Purse which is a relief organization ran by Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son.
It's really neat to hear and read about the stories how these little boxes full of small trinkets make a child's day, week, and can even change their lives. We received a newsletter a few months back and we quickly recognized Sandra's shoebox that she sent in one of the pictures. IT WAS IN SRI LANKA!!!
Awesome.
We stuff the boxes with a lot of neat stuff. Mine had a stuffed T-Rex, a coloring book with crayons, some toy cars, a bag of suckers, a game, 2 yo-yos, a toothbrush and a tube of toothepaste. We also made cards with our picture on them and wrote them a message of God's love. Samaritan's purse then takes the boxes and puts neat picture story books in them that tell them the Gospel message in their native language. Overall pretty cool.
We are praying for the children who recieve these gifts that through these boxes and the workers on the field, that they may have the hope that we as Christians hold on to so dearly.
Our boxes are ready to travel!
It's really neat to hear and read about the stories how these little boxes full of small trinkets make a child's day, week, and can even change their lives. We received a newsletter a few months back and we quickly recognized Sandra's shoebox that she sent in one of the pictures. IT WAS IN SRI LANKA!!!
Awesome.
We stuff the boxes with a lot of neat stuff. Mine had a stuffed T-Rex, a coloring book with crayons, some toy cars, a bag of suckers, a game, 2 yo-yos, a toothbrush and a tube of toothepaste. We also made cards with our picture on them and wrote them a message of God's love. Samaritan's purse then takes the boxes and puts neat picture story books in them that tell them the Gospel message in their native language. Overall pretty cool.
We are praying for the children who recieve these gifts that through these boxes and the workers on the field, that they may have the hope that we as Christians hold on to so dearly.
Our boxes are ready to travel!Friday, November 03, 2006
Pumpkin Carving Fun!
I forgot to show ya'll what our pumpkins looked like this year. Sandra's of course is the cuter one on the left while mine is the one that looks like Slimer from Ghostbusters.
In case you're curious, marathon recovery time seems to be around a week or so. I actually ran a couple of miles yesterday, but I'm like at 75% if I had to guess. Not too bad since it was just Tuesday when I was still using my arms to pull myself up the stairs :)
In case you're curious, marathon recovery time seems to be around a week or so. I actually ran a couple of miles yesterday, but I'm like at 75% if I had to guess. Not too bad since it was just Tuesday when I was still using my arms to pull myself up the stairs :)
Awww.....aren't they cute together!
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