Merry Christmas Eve to You All

And Happy Birthday to my husband -- 56 today. He told someone the other day that he's spent every one of his birthdays either in church or in bed, sick. I think that is an accurate statement. For his birthday I always let him pick one present under the tree to open up -- it's a bit hazardous since I tend to wrap up anything I buy in November that is a need more than a want (socks, t-shirts, etc.) And considering one of his gifts has not yet arrived, there were only 3 things to choose from. He had "accidentally" looked through a box that arrived from Amazon a couple of weeks ago, so he pretty much knows what is in one of the "book shaped" gifts... (he knows better!) ... so he chose another one to open. And now he has three shiny white new t-shirts to replace some of the tattered ones in the drawer. I warned him... but it's the thought that counts, right? Besides, he spent his birthday and Christmas money in Turkey when he bought himself a new leather blazer/jacket and talked me into a hand-woven Turkish rug to remember the trip by:It's not a huge one, (which were cheaper per sq. ft. but spendy overall) but a good size to sit in front of our fireplace. I wouldn't have had a good place to put a big one anyway. These are traditionally made by young women as a gift to their husbands when they get married, and are handed down to the next generations forever. Selling one that was given as a gift is just not done. We visited the rug place (school?) where they are made and saw 4-5 young women working on a few of them, fingers flying. Some traditions are difficult to maintain -- one rug this size takes a LOT of hours to tie, one knot at a time!

She follows a pattern similar to a counted cross stitch pattern -- amazing!
They say they get "finger memory" so that it's easier after a while to remember what color goes where. Each time she drops her left hand, that is the completion of a knot and she is pulling it down tight and breaking off the cotton or wool fiber.

The snow we had last week is pretty much gone and there really isn't any in the forecast for our part of the country. It was nice to get a small dose of it, though, to get me into the Christmas mood a bit more. I finally made some fudge yesterday and Ben and Lou (Ok, and me) have been munching on that the past 24 hours. Other than that, if Danelle hadn't insisted on Gingerbread houses at Thanksgiving time my Christmasy kitchen fare would have been nil so far. Maybe I won't have to spend January looking for pants that still fit ... but I do want to make one or two more goodies over the next couple of weeks.

My plan for today is to do a little baking and maybe something sweet for the birthday boy. We are invited to Ben and Kelli's house for dinner tonight before church; her parents are bringing their traditional Christmas Eve dinner along -- crab -- and we get to join them. Not everyone likes crab, so I think Kelli and Lou will be eating something else. Which is unusual for Lou; he tends to like all other sorts of seafood. I told Kelli I could bring some rolls along so those need to be started pretty soon.

The plan for Lou's day is to get done what needs doing with the pigs, talk to someone about renting some additional land for next year, and go to church tonight. He will be doing the message again this year, after a little bit of scrambling this week when we weren't sure who was planning things. Since he's not congregational president any more and we have no permanent pastor, there was some question as to who was in charge of planning the service. In charge? We don't use that language at our church, so the answer turned out to be "nobody." Past service bulletins were still on my computer and he preached the Christmas Eve message the past 2 years, so he is fulfilling his call to preach whenever nobody else is planning to. We will have our "traditional" Christmas Eve Candlelight service with lots of hymns and the Christmas story readings. Traditions are good, even (especially) for a 3 year old congregation!

Merry Christmas to our kids: Rachel, Jason, and Ruston at home in Tennessee! and to Dayna, Shane, Danelle, and Thea celebrating at their home in Kirkland this year with Shane's parents visiting there! Ben and Kelli and Nicholas -- we'll see you later today!