Christmas Fun

The first couple days of December found us quickly decorating as we prepared to have families from church over for our Deacon's Christmas lunch. We headed to get our tree. The tree farm we go to is just off the Blue Ridge Parkway and actually is the tree farm that we used to come get our Christmas trees from, even when we lived in Colonial Heights. I didn't realize until after we moved here that we now only live about 20 minutes from here.

I called about the white pines that they usually have and we headed out to pick one out. After looking for quite a while, we figured out there were no white pines to be found. We ended up with a Concolor fir. After we got it home, we realized there was something pretty unique about it. Our whole house smelled like oranges. We googled it and sure enough, instead of the typical "Christmas tree" scent, Concolors smell like an orange!

Next we headed to the Lexington Christmas Parade. I think both of these pictures are so funny! Neither girl would look at me because they didn't want to stop watching the parade to get their picture made!

We did get the lights on the tree that night after the parade but decided to save the decorating until the next morning.

Rachel is old enough this year to really enjoy helping to decorate and she is good at it too. Rebekah enjoyed the little Wake Forest Deacon "Christmas man" (this is Rachel's name for Santa) for quite a while.

This is Brent and Rachel getting ready to place our Christmas nail. This idea came from the book "Redeeming the Season" and it a great read for ideas for truly focusing on Jesus each Christmas. Our Christmas nail is an ornament we place in the center of our tree each year that only our family knows is there. It is a reminder to us of our Savior who came as a baby, lived a perfect life in our place and willingly gave His Life on a tree for us that each of us might be forgiven of the wrong we have done when we come to Him by faith.

                                          "For by grace you have been saved through faith; 
                                                         and that not of yourselves,
                                                                  it is the gift of God;  
                                                         not as a result of works, so that no one may boast"
                                                                  Ephesians 2:8-9

                                                               First Peter 2: 24 says 
                      " who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, 
                                                       that we, having died to sins, 
                                                        might live for righteousness
                                                 —by whose stripes you were healed."