Christmas Eve

Old time Christmas

Well, Papa had to work on Christmas Eve and we still had no power and no electricity. We were pretty well snowed in so the last minute shopping had gone by the wayside.

One thing we noticed without the electricity was how early it gets dark in the wintertime. We would start preparing around 4pm, first cleaning up as best we could to minimize the 'trippage' and then putting out pajamas and lighting candles. This was Christmas Eve so we tried to make it special with more candles and some cookies and candy on a plate.

Our family electrician (T1) had put together some computer speakers on batteries so we listened to Focus on the Family's Radio Theatre production of The Hiding Place on the ipod. We sat in the dark waiting for Papa to get home from work, the three kids all sitting on the floor right in front of the speakers listening to the story. It was just like the old days, families crowded around the radio...or the ten Boom family listening to their radio during WWII.

It was peaceful and actually nice. We had a nice warm fire and it felt extravagant to be listening to something electronic after a week without.

Here is Christmas Eve, Papa read the Christmas story out of Luke using the Itty Bitty booklight.

We had cookies and opened one present each. The boys opened thermal underwear which they absolutely loved. They wore it to bed, it was a night of timely presents as I got my very own headlight! I never thought I would want one, but they are the best!

Wherever you look, there is light.

Christmas morning brought more snow and for once, I wasn't dead tired waking up with the kids. That is another thing that was nice about no electricity. Papa and I went to be much earlier than usual, you just can't do much in the dark with a little headlight. So we went to bed at the same time and work up fresh with the sun. I did like that too.

Papa and the kids played together in the snow. I sat inside and knitted. It was a quiet, day where we were all home together in our secluded cabin surrounded by snow. In the evening, Papa read to us around the woodstove from our new biography called If I Perish. I listened and knitted by my headlight. We all begged for 'another chapter' after each one ended, and we were pleasantly obliged for a few hours.

Christmas knitting: I finished the sock for Papa. It was a little too long, but I ripped it back and made it fit him perfectly. I'm working on the other sock now. He was genuinely SHOCKED. A real sock! From recycled yarn too, except the reinforcing yarn in the heel and toe.

I finished the vest for T2, a hat for T1, and the cardigan for T3 except the buttons. Everyone was surprised except for daughter who has been asked to try on her sweater periodically. The boys were all surprised that I had secret knitting that they didn't know about.

Dear daughter was not at all happy with her 'ratchy' sweater and frowned the entire time Papa made her try it on after opening. Oh well...maybe she can get her daughter to wear it someday ;)

Some of the worst things about not have power or water:

• Not being able to wash my hands
• Not being able to wash the dishes
• Not being able to stay up late and accomplish things

Some of the best things about not having power or water:

• Not being able to wash the dishes
• Not being able to stay up late and accomplish things
• Quiet, peaceful evenings together as a family
• Surviving as a family team
  

Thankfully, my swift didn't need electricity to work! And in the end, the power did come back.

We enjoyed the quietness and lull before we were to face the next storm ahead. Here Papa reads The Littlest Angel to T3. She has to ask Papa to read it because Mama always refuses.

The saddest part to me is when it describes the littlest angel's gift:

"...there was a butterfly with golden wings, captured one bright summer day on the hills above Jerusalem, and a sky-blue egg from a bird's nest in nthe olive tree that stood to shade his mother's kitchen door. Yes, and two white stones, found on a muddy river bank, where he and his friends had played like small brown beavers, and, at the bottom of the box, a limp, tooth-marked leather strap, once worn as a collar by his mongrel dog, who had died as he had lived, in absolute love and infinite devotion."

I think about this little boy's family. It underscores the fact that this vibrant little boy died and it makes me sad. I think of dear Jacob who was only 3.5 when he went to be with the Lord. I think of his parents and their daily heartbreak.

It is a wonderful story though. I just can't read it yet.

I hope your Christmas was wonderful too.

The long winter week

How was your Christmas? Ours was...different.

Different but good.

We had an unusual amount of snow and lost our power and water for 6 days (Dec 21-26th).

My oldest son is always hoping the power will go out and this time he got his wish. On the other hand, Mama wasn't so excited.

We had gotten quite a bit of snow and thankfully Papa had the idea to fill up the bathtubs just in case we lost power. This is for flushing toilets with. We did have one tub relatively full.

One thing I would never want to be without is a woodstove. We have an old, completely un-cool house. We chose property over a nice house in town. One of the things I noticed when we were looking at those nice houses in town was the gas fireplaces and the lack of woodstoves.

My sister lives right by us. They have a woodstove insert that didn't heat their house at all. It uses electricity to push the warm air from the woodstove through the vents of the house. A nice feature if you have electricity, but not so nice when the power is out in freezing weather. It was 39 degrees in her house, colder than the temperature in her refrigerator. They left their house and went to friends' and also made use of their camp trailer. The good thing about it was it pointed out to them things they want to change now to avoid this in the future.

We were never so thankful for our old woodstove. It has a large top which I quickly put to good use. I have never cooked on a woodstove before, but it was my only option and it was rather interesting. I opened a couple cans of soup, added extra water, rice, frozen vegetables and some flour to thicken and cooked that in the big skillet. In the other pan I was heating water for coffee (french press).

I love my cast iron skillets.

I happened to have these pinto beans soaking the night before so I put them in the skillet with water, katsup and brown sugar for Baked Beans. At the same time I made corn bread in another skillet with a lid. It burned on the bottom but no one noticed. I scraped up the burnt bits and tossed them outside for the birds.
After he had the baked beans and cornbread my husband said that I was now in danger of being made the 'camp cook' on his next hunting trip.

When the beans began to dry out a little, I just added more snow and let them cook longer.

The worst thing was washing the skillets and dishes. (which didn't happen). After a day or two without water, I gave up the idea that the power would come on anytime and resolved that it might be longer. We switched to paper plates and bowls.

My daughter had her own plans for beans.

I loved finding these little birdie tracks on the front porch. They were so small, you can get an idea of their size by Jack's red Kong chew toy on the right.

I noticed the wild birds more than ever during the snow. We realized there is just not much for them to eat in the snow. We were glad to have some birdseed to put out for them as well as a little tray of water for them to drink in the carport.

It reminded me of the verses in Matthew about how the Lord cares for the birds. Maybe he was using us to care for them.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

Matthew 6:25-27

Much time was spent just trying to give the animals water. Breaking ice on water troughs or melting snow for water. Papa had to bring in large jugs of water for the cows. The chickens didn't want to have anything to do with the snow, a few brave souls ventured out for brief expeditions, but for the most part they stayed 'cooped up' all the time.

We as a society are not equipped or prepared for a world without electricity. We had never really thought much about it until this happened. But this experience helped us to know what we may like to do in order to be better prepared for another event such as this.

I would like to start canning quarts of homemade chili, soups, stews and beans just to keep for emergencies. We also would like to have our well wired for hooking up to a generator.

Have you ever thought about how long could you survive without power and water? Do you think that could ever be a reality in our world with the uncertain economic times we find ourselves in?

Check out Kevin Swanson:

Super Government Saves the Day

The Future of Life in America

Unto Us a Child Is Born

The Nativity by Francois Boucher

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

The tree

Here are some pictures from our trip to get the Christmas tree.

It's a great place, free coffee, hot chocolate, cookies and a horse drawn wagon to boot. But it is more expensive. We figure it's worth the fun.

We couldn't help ourselves.

We HAD to go see their chickens. We admired them. They were pretty fat, much fatter than our free-range chickens of the same breed. We wondered if that was because of lack of exercise. There's not much for a chicken to do in a coop. The ground is all muddy, nothing to scratch for, nothing to peck at except the other chickens.

We felt especially sorry for one hen who continually pecked at the empty waterer. She didn't give up, she just kept trying. We wanted to help her out but felt that it wasn't our place. (And our chickens have been without water before...it happens. But we did feel for her.)

The Lord provided a $10 tree, already cut. It was just standing there waiting to be paid for. It was a bargain from the $30 to cut your own. We are definitely in the market for a bargain these days! My husband wondered about not having the experience of cutting a tree, it wouldn't be as fun if we didn't.

He came up with a great solution. We rode on the horse drawn wagon to the tree-cutting area and then played hide-and-seek.

Here the boys count to 50. Ready or not, here we come!

It was a good time, then we headed back to pick up our tree and go home.

A high school gal picked up the wrapped tree to carry to our truck. It was a service offered by the establishment.

A courtesy.

But it just didn't seem right.

The boys thanked her and said no, they would carry it.

Christmas Music

Just thought I'd share some of our favorites in the Christmas music department. This one by Amy Grant is definitely one of our favorites.

I bought some new ones this year from BMG, I really like this one by Luciano Pavarotti. There is just something 'right' about it. Love it!

I bought these last year. I like Dean Martin's voice, but I just picture him singing with a drink and a cigarette. Am I wrong? I don't know, he just sounds like that. It sort of ruins the music for me. I'm considering selling this on ebay this year. I have to decide soon. (Update: sold it.)

I love James Taylor, this one is pretty good. Not all traditional, but still James Taylor.

I bought Nat King Cole last year and absolutely love it. I think this one is my very favorite. Just very nice old Christmas songs. Actually singing about baby Jesus! Wow! Think of that?!

The Bing Crosby one is pretty good too. I bought that this year.

I like this one too. I saw Placido Domingo at the World's Fair in Sevilla, Spain in 1992 so that sparked this one.

What are your favorites?

Christmas Book List

With Christmas around the corner, I thought I would share my on-going list of good Christmas books that I try to get from the library. If you haven't gotten comfortable requesting books from your library online yet, I would suggest looking into it. As a busy mother of young children it saves me a lot of time. I get out my booklists and sit down at the computer and order away. I can dash into the library and pick up a bag full of tried and true treasures without spending hours sorting through mountains of twaddle. (Twaddle = dumbed down literature; absence of meaning) I hold them online and slowly they start rolling in.

After reading the books ourselves, we can then decide which ones we would like to purchase for our own library. I think it's very important to live with books. Not just to borrow from the library and send them back, but to have a growing and vibrant home library that promotes a love of learning and reading. Now that we have been reading some of the same Christmas books every year, I'm starting to see the joy the boys get in reading an old favorite.

I avoid books on Santa, Frosty and Rudolph for the most part. I do think we have a few. The kids know who these characters are and they are fun kept in perspective. We don't feel we are depriving them by not playing along with the whole Santa charade. You can hardly avoid any of this type of Christmas hype by just living in the world today. On the other hand, we have to WORK HARD to remember the true meaning of Christmas and keep that our focus. We talk alot about how consumerism works, how the stores manipulate us by just pushing the next holiday. What is really important, etc. I guess the books we chose also help reinforce that.

I find it very helpful to keep a running list in a notebook of the books we've read, want to read, etc. I also have a list of Thanksgiving and Christmas books that I refer to as the season draws near. If I hear of a good Christmas book in March, I can jot it down on my list and it will still be there come November.

Do you know of a wonderful Christmas book that has escaped my list? If so, please share.

*The asterisks are to show which books we own.

*A Lion in the Box - Marguerite De Angeli
This is an older book you may have trouble finding. We always borrowed ours from the library, but decided to secure our own copy this year on Ebay. We love this story.

*The Story of Holly and Ivy - Rumer Godden


*The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey - Susan Wojciechowski

Cranberry Christmas - Harry & Wende Devlin
This goes along with another favorite of ours, Cranberry Thanksgiving.

*The Tailor of Gloucester - Beatrix Potter

*The Bird's Christmas Carol - Kate Douglas Wiggin

The Gift of the Magi - O'Henry

Becky's Christmas - Tasha Tudor

Take Joy - Tasha Tudor

*The Little Drummer Boy - Ezra Jack Keats

The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree - Gloria Houston
This is a great picture book. I'd like to add this one to our library someday.

Early American Christmas - Tomie dePaola

The Family Christmas Tree Book - Tomie dePaola

*One Wintry Night - Ruth Bell Graham

One video we always like to borrow is George Balanchine's The Nutcracker.

This is a wonderful child friendly version of the Nutcracker that is enjoyable for adults as well.



Here is a more extensive list of Holiday books from The Classical Christian Education Support Loop



Primary Reading Level: 1-3

Amish Christmas by Richard Ammon

Christmas in the Barn by Margaret Wise Brown

Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojchiechowski

Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado

First Christmas by Robbie Trent

First Christmas by Tomie de Paola

Grumpy Shepherd by Paddie Devon

Mary, Did You Know? by Mark Lowry

Modestita’s Gift, El Regalo de Modestita by Inez Torres Davis

Peter Spier’s Christmas by Peter Spier

Rembrandt: The Christmas Story published by Thomas Nelson

Silent Night by Susan Jeffers

Story of Christmas: Words from the Gospels of Matthew & Luke by Jane Ray

Who Is Coming to Our House by Joseph Slate



Elementary Reading Level: 4-6

Bells of Christmas by Virginia Hamilton

Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson

Birds' Christmas Carol by Kate Douglas Wiggin

Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Christmas Stories of George MacDonald by George MacDonald

Good King Wenceslas by John Mason Neale, illus. by Christopher Manson

An Appalachian Christmas Story by Gloria Houston

On That Night by Elizabeth Yates

One Wintry Night by Ruth Graham

Oxford Illustrated Dickens’ Christmas Books by Charles Dickens

Patricia St. John Christmas Book by Patricia St. John

Rembrandt: The Christmas Story published by Thomas Nelson



Junior Reading Level: 7-9

Gift, The by R. Kent Hughes, illustrated by Ron DiCianni

Martin Luther’s Christmas Book edited by Roland H. Bainton

Rembrandt: The Christmas Story published by Thomas Nelson