Friday, December 29, 2006

More Christmas Pics





What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

We're having a party of course! We often celebrate New Year's Eve here at home with our family and friends. Our house sits fairly high up on a hill with two big picture windows that look out onto the deck, so it's ideal for shooting off fireworks at midnight. Many people here like to go to the top of Mount Tapochau to see the fireworks shot from the hotels, which is fairly convenient from here also.

Because New Year's Eve is a Sunday this year we'll be a little more structured--not quite as much of a free-for-all as usual--until the clock strikes 12 that is!

I don't usually ask questions here, but I'd be interested to hear if you have favorite yearly traditions or if you just go to bed.

What do you do on New Year's Eve?

Hey! For Unto Us A Child Is BORN!

Christmas Eve 2006--
While visions of "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" danced in our heads, we had our annual family Christmas re-enactment of the beautiful words of Luke 2. In an effort at increased reverence, I had suggested that we were all getting a little too old for "acting out" the Nativity story this year and maybe we should just take turns reading it. I'm so glad that idea was promptly nixed and the play proceeded as usual. In fact, better than usual--Mary (Kait) was a beautiful and dignified sight, even with a towel on her head, as she tenderly laid the baby (an old ratty-haired doll) in the manger. There weren't the number of animals in stable there used to be, but Dad still willingly bears the donkey's burden (type-casting?). Joseph (Ez) and the shepherd (Jake) do their parts admirably, and the rest of us (I usually read the story) thoroughly enjoyed it all. Best of all, the exhuberant angel reminded us of the joyous news that was published that night when Peace was born on Earth.

Blog Recycling

Since Blogger Beta is no more and we're all changing over to the new features, I decided that it was time for new paper in the bloggingroom. I hadn't really thought of using Lindsay's old template, but when I was looking through, the name caught my eye. "Harbor." I liked that idea. So since it also fit in well with our real life and nobody I knew was currently using it, I put it up. Does "Reduce, reuse, recycle" go for cyberspace?
The "Benchmark" picture I added for myself. I have found it difficult to reference my memories with no seasons, so I'm giving myself a little help. Now, if I can just remember to change the picture....