Category Archives: Christmas

Christmas Printables -Pretty and Useful-

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I have a confession to make, one of the reasons why I love lists is because I love to write them down with my pretty markers and look at them and feel like just by writing them, half of the job has been completed. I hope I am not the only one that feels like that.

Shiloh Photography ©

My friend Jessalyn, has made some wonderful printables (very, very pretty ones) in which I would definitely love to keep my Christmas lists this year. She has four planners, A Christmas Gift Planner, A Christmas Baking Planner, A Christmas Budget Planner, and a Christmas Check list; and all of them are available in color or black and white.

The Budget Planner has six categories: Gifts, Decor, Food, Crafts, Travel, and Other. The planner is clean and easy to use; and I am sure that if we start planning our Christmas budget right now, we could start doing some shopping in advance in order to save some money, while avoiding the big crowds that in December are found everywhere.

The Christmas Gift Planner is very useful because it has, firts of all, a budget line, so we won’t forget what our limits are. Then we have four columns: Name, Gift, Store, Price. I love the *Store* column, because I am sure it has happened to all of us, we all have seen the perfect gift for our friend and then we totally forget where we saw it! And it has four options for each name, which is a great help when trying to decide. That is the good thing about planners, you can “see” your mind in paper.

In our family we have decided not to give each other gifts in Christmas; and if this is the same in yours, let me tell you of some others different ways we could use this planner (because it is just too pretty not to use it). Some families like to give money, food, bibles, etc. to different charitable associations, to missionaries, and to friends in church who are in need. Well, why not using this list as a family project to encourage this? This is what I will do. It will help us plan more carefully how much we can give and to whom we will give.

And my two favorite planners are The Christmas Baking Planner and The Christmas Checklist.

The Christmas Baking Planner (for gifts, for parties, to enjoy) is a must, and I will start filling it pretty soon! Every time I find a recipe I would love to bake, I will jot down where it is located (website, magazine, book, etc), my deadline to make it, if it needs a special box or some kind of packaging and also the supplies I need to make it. Flour, sugar and butter are always there, but there are few recipes that ask for some ingredients that we normally don’t have at hand.

And the ultimate, most useful, wonderful and lovely planner; introducing to you, Ladies and Gentlemen:  The Christmas Checklist!

It seems too simple, but it is not! In it I will keep track of everything that doesn’t fall in the other categories. For example: Christmas school projects, crafts, books I want to read with my children (I have shared with you how we really devote a lot of time during Christmas season to study and meditate about the Incarnation of our Lord), cards I want to write and send in the mail, etc. I am ready to print mine (in color of course) and have fun as I start to anticipate this special season; which I love so much.

Jessalyn, has made this beautiful printables available for free, but as you can imagine, it took her several hours to make them that pretty; so f you want to say thank you, leave her a comment saying so, and maybe you feel inclined to leave her a small donation (99 cents?) via Paypal.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend, dear friends! I am grateful for you, and for the wonderful gift of having readers like you.

Becky

Desiring Virtue

>December 24th

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The Nativity; Martin Shongauer, c.1480
“For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given;

and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

and his name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, 

Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, 

Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and of peace

there will be no end,

on the throne of David and over his kingdom,

to establish it and to uphold it

with justice and with righteousness

from this time forth and forevermore.

The zeal of the “Lord of hosts will do this.” 


Isaiah 9: 6-7


>Celebrating the Incarnation of our Lord -part IV-

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“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. ” Luke 2: 1- 7 (ESV)

Mary is ready; her womb is heavy, her heart pounds hard, she knows the days are getting closer. She can’t no longer sleep well, and her lower back hurts. But she follows her husband; they travel to Bethlehem to fulfill an order of a man who did not know that his order was only the result of a Sovereign decree.

They journey under His sun to meet the greatest miracle of all, to see God’s promise fulfilled, to meet the Saviour of the world face to face. They walk a long walk with the Word of God ahead of them; leading them; Do they realize that the Word of God is in Mary’s womb?

They walk one more day, they knock one more door; they hope for one place to rest,  a place to lay the soon-to-be-born Baby’s head; but they found none.

The waiting is almost over for them, the Advent is almost over for us; we have meditated, we have read, we have pondered; we have studied what this magnificent word Incarnation means. We want to see Him; O how we long for His presence!

Today, I feel like Mary, full of Him, full of awe. I don’t have the Son of God in my womb; I have Him in my heart; the Holy Spirit came to Mary once, but He dwells within me daily. The Word has been growing deep in me, changing me; I, too, walk under His sun expecting the day I will see Him face to face. Mary and Joseph were always led by God, day after day, they were led by the Spirit to meet their Saviour; so we are.

We, Christians, are like Mary, chosen by God to see Him one day face to face; to embrace His Grace, to behold His glory.

This Christmas, I am reminded that I am only on a daily journey; no matter how heavy the burden might be, how rough the road might be, no matter how many doors I knock and how many of them remain closed; His Word leads me, His holy Spirit dwells within me; Christ is being formed in me; I walk daily to the day I will see Him face to face.

Calvin’s words come to my heart and meet me this Advent season; he says of Mary,

“She should be to us a mirror of God’s mercy. For in mercy God chose us for Himself, sinners though we were, rescued us from the abyss of death and had compassion on us. Mary is thus set before us as an example to imitate. with her we acknowledge that we are nothing, that we count for nothing, and are utterly reliant on God’s goodness. That is how we can be Mary’s pupils, proving by our aptness that we have been attentive to her teaching” (1)

I pray that God will give us grace to magnify God our Saviour daily as we journey under His sun, led by His Holy Spirit; fed with His Word. O, that Christ may be formed in us!

How I long to walk full of Him until the day I see Him face to face in all His glory!

Merry Christmas, to you, my Christian friend!

(1) John Calvin, Songs of the Nativity; Selected Sermons on Luke 1& 2

>Endless Gifts on Monday

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“At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth” (Luke 1:39-40 )

After Mary heard the news from the angel she ran to Elizabeth’s home; she couldn’t wait; she hurried to tell her the good news. Calvin says,

“Let us therefore learn from her example. If God should give us some token of his favour, we must bear witness to him before men. Our aim should be not only to confess him with our lips – a sacrifice he rightly demands of us – but to build everyone up and to urge each other on in perfect harmony and concord, so that the whole world may echo his praises… So whenever we speak about what God has done, we should strive to show how much we depend on him alone, and how awe have comes freely from his bountiful hand.” (1)

This is why I make publicly my gratitude list, I want to share,  to tell everyone about God’s goodness to me, to my family, to his people; I don’t deserve anything, I don’t “claim promises”; I don’t  “confess with my mouth” to receive His goodness. What I receive from His hand is grace, mercy, unmerited favors.

How can I live without proclaiming His goodness? I am, ABSOLUTELY dependent of God.

Let us rejoice together, let us praise Him for all that He has done, let us not forget all those little things that make up our daily journey happy; let us pray so that we might have eyes to see His hand in every circumstance, so that we may praise Him together.

1015. His Word translated into Spanish.

1016. His Word translated into Kimyal language.

1017. Being Joyful in the mercies of God (great food for the soul)

1018. Friends over and happy fellowship with our brothers and sisters in our home.

1019. Having fun with “piñatas”

Pixels and Strories

1020. Three girls laughing around a gingerbread house.

Pixels and Stories

1021. Candies in cupcakes, reminding me of how sweet it is to spend time with my girls.

1022. Coffee time with my precious daughter and my mom.

1023. A long and happy conversation with my two young men. I am grateful to see how Jesus is being formed in them.

1024. My oldest son staying up late, chatting and laughing with our youngest daughter. What a gift to hear them laugh!

1025. Sloppy Joes to feed a happy crowd.

1026. These breakfast muffins on a cold Saturday morning.  (voted the favorite ones around here)

1027. The most amazing verse in the Bible.

1028. Having the kind of friends you really miss all year ’round.

1029. My Journal.

1030. Finding my little one reading her Bible on her bed.

1031. Songs from the prayer closet.

May your mouth be filled with His praises today, may His song be your song today!

Much love,

>A Manger and a Cross

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You laid aside your crown, and your royalty, O King, O Jesus.
You came to save. You did not have to come, yet you came.
The manger, and the nativity set; 
the Advent and the carols; 
the gifts and lights and Christmas trees and Posadas are without meaning if we do not raise our eyes.
You came as a baby but you came to grow and obey; heal and love; restore and touch; serve and die.
You came to die, to pay a price, to fulfill an eternal purpose, to redeem your own people.
You came to die a painful death. You came and my sins you bore on that cross.
You died and rose again victoriously.
A baby in a manger is the beginning of a love story. 
It doesn’t end there. 
Let us raise our eyes and see the cross and an empty tomb.

“And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.”
I Corinthians 15: 14

We now decorate a tree to remember that you came as a baby, 
help me now see beyond the beautiful lights…
You were nailed to a wooden cross, a raw tree. 
A tree that you, the Word, created. 
A death tree which held your broken body.
Lord, help me learn that you have called me to die. 
Die to myself, die to the sins that still want to rule over me. 
Die in order to live. 
Help me walk beyond the manger to the cross and then see You sitted at the right hand of God.
I long for that day. 
Face to face.
Show me how to live dying. How to serve and serve and serve.
Let this Christmas be a time of change.
 Let the change start within me.

Image found @ My Daily Journey -through my lens.

>The Holiness of God – Chapter Ten- and Christmas-

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“When I consider your heavens, 

the work of your fingers, 
the moon and the stars, 
which you have set in place, 
what is the man that you are mindful of him, 
the son of man that you care for him? 
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings 
and crowned him with glory and honor” 
Psalm 8:3- 5 ESV

The chapter is entitled, Looking Beyond Shadows, and the Bible verse above is the starting point.  I have never thought what Dr. Sproul points out to us here, listen to him:

“These {Psalm 8: 3-5} were not the sentiments of a professional astronomer or a primitive astrologer. They were the reflections of an ordinary person who was contemplating his small place in a vast universe. The psalmist had no concept of an expanding universe that contained billions of stars and innumerable galaxies. He had no thoughts of exploding novae or of spiral nebulae. He had never heard of the Big-Bang cosmology. From his vantage point in space and time, the sky appeared to be a doomed canopy whose luminaries were perhaps only a few miles high in the sky”



I can not but put together this chapter with all the meditations I have been reading concerning the Incarnation of our Lord. 


This is what we should ponder about this season… “What is man that you are so mindful of Him?”

“With the meager resources the psalmist had when ge gazed into the night sky of Palestine, he was overwhelmed by the weighty sense of contrast between the magnificence of the heavens and the reality obscurity and insignificance of his own life. By considering the start, he was forced to ask the ultimate question: ‘What is man that you are mindful of Him?'”

This is where I see the connection… Why did You, O Lord, choose to come to rescue us… me?

Maybe I am starting to understand…

“Perhaps the psalmist was able to perceive something to which we have become almost completely blind. Perhaps it was because the psalmist could see past the stars and the moon to the ONe who set them in the heavens in the first place”

Yes, O Lord, help me see beyond the shadows; through the stars and the ordinary; Help me see you!

These words I read and re-read, these words say s much about me.

“We are creatures who prefer life in the cave to the full light of the blazing sun. The glory of God is all around us. We cannot miss it. However, we not only fail to stop and smell the flowers, but we also fail to notice the glory of the flowers’ Maker.


Indeed the featured presentation in te theater of divine majesty in which we walk daily is God’s glory. The Psalmist declares that the sky and all of nature sing out God’s glory and majesty”

This is the Holy One who was indeed mindful of his creatures and came to them. The creature became creature. The Holy One came in flesh.

But we cannot see beyond shadows if we haven’t been  regenerated by the Holy Spirit. We are not able to see beyond the beauty of the world around us, we are not be able to see  beyond the stars or Christmas lights; we are not able to hear beyond Christmas carols or the beautiful sound of ocean waves crashing against huge rocks; we are not able to see His holiness, His Glory beyond shadows if we have not been born of the spirit. If our eyes have not be opened to see and our ears have not been opened to hear. We desperately need Him.

“Shadows in a cave are given to change. They dance and flicker with ever-changing shape and brightness. To contemplate the truly holy and to go beyond the surface of creaturely things, we need to get out of our self- made cave and walk in the glorious light of God’s holiness”

Walking out from shadows…

Thanks to Tim Challies for choosing this book.