delayed postcards

My life needs to catch up and it needs to be soon too. The holidays are quickly dissipating and routine is cranking up. My last, hopefully,  time to share a bit of our days of Christmas.

* What kept us extremely busy was Charlotte's part of Clara in her ballet troupe's annual performance of the Nutcracker. Ways to put lasting curls into her hair was a daily quest.

*My sister and I took a day trip to Virginia to visit the aunts, my Daddy's sisters, and a basket of gifts accompanied us

*One evening my husband and I were sitting in the sunroom and the reflection of lights were too beautiful for words, SNAP

*Eli and Charlotte spent one entire morning constructing a gingerbread house

*We hosted a Widow Luncheon at our house on the Friday before Christmas. My family served these precious ladies and we had loads of fun playing games too.

* Christmas cookie baking has become sparser at my house. But we still managed to bake something fun. This year Charlotte chose Gingerbread cookies and decorated them with white icing. This icing is simple to make and I love the shine.

*Claire's mother, Nancy, invited us to their home for lunch and then we made a trip to town and toured a dry good store with a long line of history

*Homemade Nativity in sunlight

*the last performance of the Nutcracker

much to ponder

It was Christmas after all.

And even though it is days later when I am in the throes of wrapping paper and Christmas sweets and leftovers of the feasting kind, still...I am immersed in Christmas goodness.

Which is very evident as I download my photos and smile.

"But Mary kept all these thing, and pondered them in her heart." Luke 2:19

This verse has been one of my favorites of all the Christmas verses read and reread in the Bible. A woman and a mother, roles she was given by her Creator. Yet He chose her, Mary, to be the mother of the Savior, her Savior too. She had  much to ponder.

But as women and mothers, we without doubt have much to ponder too. And I shall spend some of these slower days before the New Year pondering, getting my heartfilled.

Christmas morning, afternoon, and evening

"A jumble of impressions, bright fragments of the last twenty-four hours, jostled together in her tired mind like the tiny pieces of colored glass in a child's kaleidoscope."

Miss Read

The Christmas Mouse

Up early with Claire and Witt arriving just as they said they would.  Hot coffee poured into Christmas mugs. Then Charlotte found Baby Jesus and placed him in the manger. Christmas morning began.


In the afternoon, I took a walk with my second son. The one who is planning on leaving the first of the year to go to North Vietnam to teach English. So glad for the times we are able to spend together.

We dressed for dinner. I wore a  black velvet skirt and black swooped-neck top. A vintage silver watch,  a gift from my husband this Christmas, cupped my wrist. All seven of us gathered around the dining room table with candles glowing in glass globes. We ate a delicious meal of prime rib and yorkshire pudding with brussel sprouts, carrots, and spicy french green beans.

A quiet moment

A yarn of steel-blue wool being knitted into fingerless mitts for Charlotte's violin teacher who ventures out into chilly winter mornings to milk her Alpine goats.

A much favored Christmas book filled with short stories of coziness and warmth by Miss Read.

And a cup of hot tea, all being enjoyed before the twinkling lights.

Knitting and reading with Ginny's Yarn along .

Memories must take time, 

and the choice of a memory always means

 that a negative choice is made not to use the time another way. 

We are finite, and in our finiteness and limitedness 

we can never choose to do something without choosing not to do something else.  

There is usually the need to put aside ten other things to do one special thing.

Edith Schaeffer

What Is A Family