Christmas Q's

Heather asked us to do this. It's one I think I've done before, but what the hey!
1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping Paper! I used to wrap professionally in the pre-J days! I love to make smooth creases and tie the packages up with ribbons. Wrapping is theraputic.
2. Real tree or Artificial? Artificial ~ Allergies prevent me from walking into my back yard and cutting one down to bring into the house - how sad is that?
3. When do you put up the tree? Since Tof has gotten old enough to help - ASAP after Thanksgiving.
4. When do you take the tree down? The day before school starts again.
5. Do you like eggnog? not even the scent!
6. Favorite gift received as a child? I got a pet radio. They were these transistor radios inside the body of a stuffed animal. I would fall asleep curled up with Hepsaba singing to me. She was a mouse with a mob cap and aproned dress. :o) I had her until I got married!
8. Easiest person to buy for? Tof this year.
9. Do You have a nativity scene? 4! One in the window, One under the tree for kids to play with, one all in one piece that sits on the Organ, & one in an ornament on the tree.
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail definately! I am a tactile person!
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? 5 disc CD changer. J wanted it, I got it -- from him.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? As a child - A Charlie Brown Christmas. As an Adult - too many! It's a Wonderful Life, The Nativity Story, Annie, Elf, Miralcle on 34th, Prancer, Charlie Brown, Rudolph claymation, ...
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? all year long!
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Not as a gift. I have taken things to Goodwill for others to buy.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Christmas Breakfast Casserole (tradition post coming about this soon!)
16. Lights on the tree? Yes - all White and tiny.
17. Favorite Christmas song? Pretty much all of them. I'm waiting for one of my guys to write my all time favorite, though.
18. Travel for Christmas or stay home? Stay home - so sad. We always have Christmas eve service to do, & then there are the 3 treacherous mountain passes, not to mention the Storm warnings in effect for Wasington State this week.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Thank You Mr. Burl Ives - yes I do!
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel - we've had her since we were married! (thanks to my Mommy)
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Morning! We get up, start a fire, put on Christmas music, get the coffee goin', pop the casserole in the oven, and call the kids upstairs!
22. Hardest thing about this time of the year? I think, for me, it is the sadness I feel for those who don't believe Jesus came.
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? White and Red (big surprise there!) or Aqua and Silver.
24. Favorite Christmas dinner? Ham with the carrots and potatoe wedges cooked in with it, potatoe rolls, Garlic Dills, olives to make frog fingers with and Sparkling Cider.
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? Everything I really want is too expensive and pie-in-the-sky-ish. I'm so loved by my family, that is really all I could ask for. I enjoy watching them open what I have pondered and considered and chosen more than receiving -Honest! I'm not a great receiver.

December Photo Project - D19

Cassia took Kaija to a new movie for her birthday. Minda and I tagged along too. It was one of our favorite books 6 years ago, and now it is an amazing movie.

Expelled

Expelled, originally uploaded by efiw.

We took the kids to the "movies" Monday.
I've been following this movie for almost a year and was intensely interested to see if this was going to just be another bash fest or a presentation of facts. Ben Stein did a decent job of getting word out there as to what is happening and how our World View seems to influence our ability to look at facts objectively and follow those facts to their ultimate conclusion. Still, it was a bit bashing (typical Ben sarcasm.)
I did learn a few things:
*You do not have to be a Christian (or even a Creationist) to subscribe to the ID theory. ID is simply stating that since scientists don't know the origins of life, could there be an intelligent designer instead of having to have all the proteins and atoms mesh in just the right way to bring about the 1st cell that in turn evolved into life.
*Darwinists are much more violent and vigilant than IDists.
*Science has been reduced to popular belief instead of testing, achieving results and documenting facts.
*It sounds just as crazy for me to say that God created life by molding mud and breathing into it, when I have never seen with my physical eyes the performance of the creation of life with mud or otherwise, as it does for Darwinists to say the first cell came about billions of years ago through lightning striking primordial soup causing evolvution into complex life forms.

One of the professors in the movie who teaches evolution was passionate about making sure nobody believed in God or the idea of after-life (heaven in particular). It was hopelessness up close and personal. Minda walked away from it in tears. I did too. He will never know the grace, mercy or love of God, and he doesn't care to.
The next day she said to me, "Mom, it seemed so much easier to believe in God when I was little. This whole God-head thing is strange, and difficult to understand." I went on to talk with her about how faith comes into play where we don't totally understand, and how growing up also means having to make choices for ourselves and not just following our parents like we did at 4 or 5 years old. In the end she said, "I wish I could stay 6 years old in my spirit then, forever."
Don't we all?

24 on the big screen?

The real-time TV thriller 24 is headed to the big screen under a deal between movie studio 20th Century Fox and the show's producers. click pic for story...

Narnia - Histoire D'amour

When you are a child, and have wandered into an 'otherworld' through inky black words that fill pages that make up a book and weave a story, you no longer belong to this world. Your story is theirs, their story is yours. The integrity of the words to remain unchanged each time you return to them means that they have value and worth. The fact is is that you don't want them to read differently because, if they were, you would somehow be different as well. That is what the makers of this Chronicle lacked. Conviction. They must have never truly been a part of Narnia, for they sought to change it in ways that made the Narnian in me weep over the loss.
Where was the fear that made the witch pick up her skirts and 'fairly fly' when he roared? (for that matter, where was that scene?) and Where was the love that drew the children to Him? Why did the trees not bend low with Aslan's resurrection roar? Why did He not leap into the air for 'the most thrilling of all times' as Lucy and Susan rode upon Him? Where was the whittisism amidst the severity that reassured that all was well? Why when the enlarged battle scene was over was there not reverie? Was victory not as important as the sacrifice?
I did cry at the movie. Not because it touched me. I cried because part of the wonder and romance of childhood died in me.
There is a conversation in Jack's book. It was the conversation that captured me as a child. Made my heart 'sit up' with a 'deep knowing' that Aslan was Jesus:
"There are others still wounded." Aslan said while Lucy looked at Edmund's pale face, wondering if the cordial would have any effect.
"Yes. I know," Lucy, said crossly, "Wait a minute."
"Daughter of Eve!" said Aslan in a graver voice, "Others, too, are at the point of death. Must more people die for Edmund?"
...
Edmund soon stands and Aslan knights him on the field of battle while his sisters whisper to eachother a little distance away.
...
"Does he know?" Lucy whispered to Susan, "What Aslan did for him? What the arrangement with the witch really was?"
"Hush! No of course not, it would be too awful for him." said Susan
"All the same, I think he should know." said Lucy.

The producers didn't feel the need to keep this heart-altering moment in the film, and thus stole the integrity, value, worth... & my heart's connection.

The movie was well made, the special effects were amazing, the CG added (although it still isn't on the quality level of my dreams). I can't help feeling that it is a bit like the American Gospel. Watered down and cut up into neat little sections that fit into a package that can be apple-pie ordered and filed away.
Very safe. The problem is that Aslan isn't safe...... but He is good. The film was safe and good, but not true, not the Truth. Oh dear, what do they teach in Hollywood?