simple things...of this past week

Car knitting today as I rode along with my husband over the river and though the hills to the hometown of Andy Griffith where Mayberry is personified as much as possible, even to offering sheriff car rides siren included, all for a price. 

These TV Slippers are a revisited knitting project originally popular in the 1960's.  Back in the 1990's I knitted several pairs for some of my friends and family for Christmas gifts.  Jane posted about these slippers and a little lightbulb went off in my brain with happy memories. I went upstairs and easily found the pattern. A bin of my stashed yarn revealed a ball of Brown Sheep wool yarn perfect for knitting a pair. These will be gifted to my granddaughter.

Over at the cottage baking molasses ginger cookies this evening.

The kerosene lamp was found in a little local vintage shop. The "Home Sweet Home" was etched into the glass globe, a good find even to the blue colored vase.

A $20.00 artificial tree purchased at Big Lots. It is really quite festive decorated at the cottage.

"Christmas we must keep. We must have a tree, and sing carols, and light the candle for the  Christ child".

                                      The Book of Stillmeadow   Gladys Taber

second birth

Hail the heav'n born Prince of Peace!

Hail the Sun of Righteousness!

Light and life to all He brings,

Ris'n with healing in His wings

Mild He lays His glory by,

Born that man no more may die;

Born to raise the sons of earth

Born to give them second birth

"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing", 3rd stanza

Charles Wesley, 1739

Born to give them second birth, just as Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:3

"Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."

John 3:16

I am hoping to post several posts of the last few days. 

Rejoice!

dumplings and cookies

"We'll all have chicken 'n dumplings when she comes...."

( 4th stanza, She'll be Coming 'Round the Mountains, folk song)

Here in the south where I have always lived, I've noticed that most people have deep opinions, far and wide, about chicken and dumplings. Sometimes it has to do with the region one grew up in or how a grandma always made them. And it has been my experience that you either love chicken and dumplings or you can just leave them for others to enjoy.

Yet it is equally true that if I want to please my husband with a delicious comfort food all I have to do is put on a pot of chicken and dumplings and he is grinning from ear to ear. How can I resist that?

 My husband and I have had very distinct differences in how we've viewed dumplings in the past. He grew up with chicken pastry, a rolled-out flour dough cut into wide strips and placed into the cooking chicken stew. While I grew up with dumplings, little balls of sticky flour dropped down into the lightly boiling pot of chicken stew.  Through the years though I have successfully made a true dumpling lover out of him. 

                                      Simple Dumplings

1 cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon dried thyme

2 Tablespoons butter

1/2 cup milk

Mix all dry ingredients. Cut in the butter with pastry blender or fingers.

Add the milk. This dough is a bit sticky, you may want to have extra flour for you fingers as you drop the dough into the hot stew. I try to make them no bigger than a teaspoon because the baking powder causes them to expand to nice-sized dumplings.

I was at the cottage the other day to bake these cookies.

Instrumental Christmas music was playing on my iPhone, a Christmas pine-tree scented candle was burning and the cottage's oven baked these cookies to perfection. It was cozy and bright with the twinkly lights I'd placed across the kitchen shelves.

He became flesh and dwelt among us...

From Heav'n above to earth I come to bear good news to every home;

    Glad tidings of great joy I bring, Whereof I now will say and sing.

To you, this night is born a Child of Mary, chosen mother mild;

   This tender Child of lowly birth, Shall be the joy of all the earth.

'Tis Christ our God, who far on high Had heard your sad and bitter cry;

   Himself will your salvation be, Himself from sin will make you free.

These are the tokens ye shall mark, The swaddling clothes and manger dark;

   There shall ye find the young Child laid, By Whom the heav'ns and earth were made.

                                                                   ~ From Heaven Above to Earth I Come 

                                                                                    Martin Luther, 1531

Written for his five year old son, Hans, this Christmas carol was simply called by Luther, "a Christmas child's song concerning the child Jesus" and was sung in the Luther's home at their Christmas Eve festivities. 

I wrote the words as they were written on the sheet music. The tune sounds very familiar to Martin Luther's great hymn, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God".

I sit here on this bleak, though not quite winter day, and I listen to the excellent performance of Handel's Messiah performed by the Queens College of Oxford while addressing my Christmas cards. Chicken and dumplings were made in the mid morning hours and are keeping warm in the crockpot for tonight's supper. A candle of balsam pine glows and makes my house smell just like the evergreens of the forest.

advent beginnings

 God's infallible, inerrant Word will not allow us to trade the glory of the incomparable God for the glory of created things. Indeed, regarding Christmas, the Scriptures summon the world to come and behold a wondrous, glorious display of God's immeasurable love for the world. God revealed in His Word the Advent of his beloved Son-the incarnation of God in Christ who had come to dwell among us. This Immanuel, "God with us"(Matthew 1:23, ESV), broke into a sinful world-lost in dark depravity-that he might cast the saving light of redemption. This is the glory of Christmas

Recapturing the Glory of Christmas

                                           R. Albert Mohler,Jr.

This year I have already been gifted an Advent book that was on my list of things I would like for Christmas. 

In years past Advent was celebrated with my children in various ways with various resources, many times using the same ones year after year.  It was one of the highlights and favorite things to do as a family leading up to Christmas Day.

Last year was the first year I realized we were no longer doing anything special for Advent daily or even weekly. Something was missing and I was the one missing it the most.

Therefore, this book is recapturing a place of an Advent devotional in my daily schedule. I can now do this on my own or with my husband. Either way I want the worship and adoration of celebrating my Savior's birth to be lighted from within and from without.

Two years ago I did a few Christmas posts including some of the stanzas of Christmas carols that might not be as familiar. I truly enjoy reading and even singing the words of the carols so much I thought you might like it too. Once again I am recapturing some of these Christmas hymns. Let me know if you know these stanzas.

King of kings, yet born of Mary, as of old on earth he stood,

Lord of lords, in human vesture, in the body and the blood,

He will give to all the faithful his own self for heav'nly food.

                                  ~Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, 2nd stanza

                                           Liturgy of St. James Fifth Century