Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night.

This evening we spend our first Christmas Eve in our new home. We had our traditional breakfast for dinner (waffles, fruit and whip cream, bacon, OJ, and cinnamon rolls), read the Christmas story in Luke Ch. 2 (after some discussion with the kids about why we need to remember Christ rather than focus on Santa and presents), and then said prayers and put the kids off to bed.

Here's the milk, cookies, carrots, and notes for Santa
(I especially like the touch of leaving a knife for Santa to cut the carrots into smaller pieces for the reindeer).

This was Jake and Luke's note to Santa:

In case you can't read it, it says:
Dear Santa,
Please enjoy our milk and cookies. The carrots are for the raindeer (reindeer). Use the knife to cut them. Bewar (beware) of our dog Tazer, the one in the ref suit, so send your best prep and landing teams.
Thank you,
The Johnsons

While it is fun to think about the Santa and presents, we as a family have agreed to try to scale back a little on all the commercialism. It is still quite a work in progress, but I feel we are moving in the right direction to make Christmas more special, more religious. We even discussed trying to do more service for our family and especially for others. Here's hoping it works.
I have been so blessed this past year with a secure job, a nice home, good health, and a great family. While it is so easy to get caught up in all the commotion and commercialism of Christmas, I hope we all remember what we are really celebrating. I am especially grateful this holiday season to remember my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ- his birth, his examples of service throughout his life, his death, and his resurrection. May we all have a Merry "Christ"mas. God bless you.