church

Christmas 2024

Advent went by so quickly, and here we are at Christmas already! Let’s take a look at this year’s celebration, starting with a Christmas lights walk Moose and I took Christmas Eve Eve…we think this should be our neighborhood’s official Christmas tree

Christmas Eve always starts with the Captain:

Chickadee finished our Lego Advent project, and Turkey and Moose played the first game of chess:

The Christmas Eve church service is my second favorite of the year…I think it’s interesting that my two favorite services both involve candlelight.

After church, we stopped by the city of St. Louis Christmas tree. It was rainy, which is unfortunate (so much for my dreams of a white Christmas), but at least that kept it from being too bright out, because it was still pretty early and should have been pretty light.

And then we drove through the Way of Lights.

When we got home, it was picture time. It’s the second year we’ve had LED lights on our Christmas tree, but I’m still not used to them…I can’t help but feel that they make the pictures look like they were taken in an aquarium!

Bunny came up with the idea for this year’s cake (carrot with a gingerbread mousse filling and cream cheese frosting), and we made it together…it was so delicious!

Of course I had to play Animal Crossing and check in with all my neighbors (especially Roald!).

We played a couple of games of Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries while watching our traditional Christmas Eve shows (the San Francisco Ballet Nutcracker and Rick Steves’ European Christmas)…I was the winner of the game I played with 152 points, and completed every route in my hand (11 in total, I believe), plus used every train car and every card I had. I think that’s the Ticket to Ride equivalent of a complete game?

I filled the stockings, tracked Santa with NORAD (I made sure he got to both St. Louis and Chicago) and set up the nativity before bed.

Christmas Day always begins with our favorite coffee cake:

Since I wasn’t entirely happy with my very blue photos from Christmas Eve, I took some more pictures at church:

Christmas morning is such a beautiful service!

We got a very nice family photo afterwards:

After we got home and opened presents, I got to work on dinner. I decided to do things a little bit different this year. Instead of making a fancy dinner, which we all enjoy, but isn’t the highlight of the holiday for us, I focused all of my energy on the best meal of the year, the Pick Out Dinner. Since that was our main Christmas dinner, I set the table with the china, folded napkins like Christmas trees, and discovered that a Stammtisch sign I’ve been wanting for a while magically appeared on the table while I was working on the dinner.

Our dinner was our usual favorites, including an extended cheese board, jalapeño popper and Rotel dips, a shrimp ring, several kinds of sandwiches, mozzarella sticks, and buffalo Chex mix.

I love making salame roses!

It’s our favorite meal of the whole year!

After dinner, we watched White Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and the Disney World Christmas parade. And then Ryan and I played Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries (using the new anniversary train cars we got for Christmas!), to determine who the house’s Ticket to Ride: Christmas champion is. Spoilers…not me! I scored almost 100 points less than I did in yesterday’s game (only 54!!!) and Ryan is the undisputed champion.

And so another Christmas has come and gone…but the 12 Days of Christmas is just beginning, and we still have some more fun planned! Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2023

Now that I’m feeling more like myself, it’s finally time for a look back at our Markel Family Christmas (and New Year’s) celebration!

But first, let me back up a bit. A few days before Christmas, I was trying to be helpful by assisting in moving a couch, and I ended up hurting my back. I managed to make it through the pain until the day after Christmas, when I finally gave in and went to the ER, where they said based on the x-rays, I had a bad muscle strain and a possible slightly slipped disc. Anyway, because of that, I had to tone done our celebration some, although Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were fairly normal.

Christmas Eve was fun because it was also Advent IV, which means we got to go to church in the morning, too!

There was our traditional Christmas Crunch to be had:

And the Fab Five finished the Lego Home Alone house:

And then we headed back to church for the Christmas Eve service, which was lovely as always!

We tried to stop by the St. Louis Christmas tree on the way home, as we have for the last few years, but there was simply no parking, so we went on our merry way, and drove though the Way of Lights only:

When we got home, I took pictures as always:

And we enjoyed a peppermint cake by the light of the fully lit Advent wreath:

I was really not feeling too well, so we didn’t play Ticket to Ride like we usually do, but I did find energy for Animal Crossing:

And I got the stockings filled with some help, and our Little People nativity scene set up:

On Christmas Day, we didn’t have to be up terribly early, so we took our time with stockings and coffee cake:

And then we headed back to church, for the third service in two days:

We managed a nice family picture even though I was still feeling pretty badly:

We took another shot at seeing the St. Louis Christmas tree on the way home, and it worked out perfectly, because there was no one there! It’s not quite the same as seeing it at night, but at least it was overcast!

When we got home, we opened presents:

And had our traditional “Pick out Dinner.”

Ryan’s parents were scheduled to arrive the day after Christmas, and I was going to make our fancy Christmas dinner the day after that. But I was feeling pretty horrible on the 26th, so the fancy dinner was postponed, and like I said, I went to the hospital, and have spent the better part of the week between Christmas and New Year’s doing absolutely nothing, including not making our fancy New Year’s dinner, either. We did have our New Year’s Eve hot chocolate bar, though:

And I managed to be awake on 12-31-23 (how cool was that date?!?) to ring in 2024 on my island (although I wasn’t sure at all that would happen!).

And I finally made the gingerbread cake that was supposed to be the ending to our fancy Christmas dinner for New Year’s Day!

This wasn’t exactly the Christmas I wanted, because I really felt like I let my family down, but I suppose it will be one we remember, anyway, and we still have two fancy dinners to look forward to!

Chickadee Thursday

Chickadee was very excited that Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday this year, because she got to wear both an Advent dress in all blue, and a new-to-her Christmas dress!

Advent 2023–Day One

Blessed Advent!

For the fifth (and maybe final…we’ll have to see what the future holds as far as big Lego sets we like) year running, we’re building a special Lego set as an Advent project. I’m super excited about this one…instead of being related to a trip we’ve taken, it’s connected to one of favorite Christmas movies…it’s the Home Alone house! I’ve actually been holding on to this set since it came out, so it feels like we’ve been waiting forever to build it. To start, Turkey built the foundation of the house:

But more importantly, he also built the bandits’ van, and the bandits themselves!

I really can’t wait to see how the house comes together, and I’m especially looking forward to discovering all of the details from the movies that are hidden in the set!

The Quiet Joy of “Low Sunday”

I’ve been thinking this week about how much I love “Low Sunday,” the Second Sunday of Easter. Why “Low Sunday?” Is it because attendance is usually lower a week after the great Festival of Easter, maybe even lower than normal Sunday attendance as everyone attempts to recover from the marathon of Holy Week? Is it because the service itself celebrates at a lower degree than just a week previous? Honestly, it’s probably a combination of the two (although more often, I do think it’s a tongue-in-cheek reference to the number of people at the service). No matter the origin of the name; I just really appreciate the quiet joy of the Sunday following the great celebration of Easter Sunday itself.

On Easter, the church is at its best. We deck ourselves out in our finery, buying special Easter outfits for the youngest members of our congregation and looking to our own attire as well, whether that means wearing a button-down shirt with jeans instead of a t-shirt, a dress instead of pants, or even an Easter bonnet. We deck the church in finery, too, adding gold paraments, special banners, uncovering or returning art that may have been put away for Lent or Holy Week, and generally giving the sanctuary a good cleaning. Our readings are full of the joy of the Resurrection, and the alleluia response is said over and over again. The service itself is extraordinary, as well…we bring in special guest musicians, add additional instruments (is it really even Easter without brass?), and play and sing music that is louder, more joyful, and more complex than our regular expressions. We literally, if you will, pull out all the stops.

But the Second Sunday of Easter is different. There may be less of us in the room. We’re probably dressed more casually, more normally. The gold paraments might still be up, but we might have switched to standard Easter white. The music, while still beautiful and full of Easter joy, is probably scaled back from the previous week. And the Bible readings focus not on the act of the Resurrection, but on what happened next. On the disciples, hiding in fear, not really understanding or believing the events of the day. On Jesus appearing to them in their isolation, (all of them but one), inviting them to see His wounds. On Thomas defiantly refusing to believe unless he has the tactile experience of touching those wounds for himself. And then a week later, Jesus appearing again, and giving Thomas exactly what he asked for, prompting the response “My Lord and my God!” Thomas, who is so often criticized for his lack of faith, who we refer to derisively as “Doubting Thomas” when we would have asked for the same of Jesus, is the first one to proclaim Jesus as his God.

Easter Sunday is without a doubt the highlight of the church year, and I look forward to it and long for it throughout Lent. But there is something equally special about the quiet moments of joy that are found on “Low Sunday” as the Easter celebration continues.

Easter 2023

As hard as it is to believe since Lent always seems like it lasts forever, Holy Week and Easter Sunday have already come and gone. We had our traditional four day celebration, beginning on Maundy Thursday, with a fun twist for Easter dinner this year! I really look forward to this celebration every year, this 2023 did not disappoint!

On Maundy Thursday, I made hot cross buns. This is definitely a tradition now…what started as an experiment in 2020 when I was only grocery shopping once every two weeks and couldn’t plan on purchasing them has become an expected part of our Holy Week observances! I did try a new recipe this time, and I think we all liked it even better than the other ones I’ve made!

The evening church service was, as expected, lovely, especially the music.

Everyone had off of school on Good Friday, which was nice. I dedicated my day to baking. I made what were probably the best buttermilk biscuits ever, as well as blueberry muffins:

We were back at church that evening for another moving service:

Would you be surprised to know that I was back to baking on Holy Saturday? I made my first-ever angel food cake…keep reading to see how it turned out!

We also made this year’s Paschal candle…I think this was our best effort ever!

The Great Vigil of Easter is still my favorite service of the whole church year…I love the meaning behind each different part!

On the way home, we stopped at Wendy’s for Frostys and fries:

Sunday morning dawned bright and beautiful!

One of my favorite traditions is taking pictures of the Fab Five by the baptismal font:

Of course, I took other pictures, too:

We also got a very nice family photo:

When we got home, we had Easter brunch (our first brunch of the day…stay with me!). I made biscuits and gravy, and we also had scrambled eggs, sausage patties, and a variety of mini donuts. And pomegranate juice, which has become something of a tradition.

It was a great first meal of the day!

We watched some of our favorite Easter specials, and I visited Zipper T. Bunny when I wasn’t working on our big meal.

I learned how to turn our napkins into flowers for Easter!

I love how pretty the Easter table always looks!

For Easter dinner, we had Easter brunch (again). But this was a fancier brunch suggested by Turkey, including eggs Benedict, breakfast casserole, bacon, waffles, a salmon and radish tart, fresh fruit, gouda tea sandwiches, blueberry muffins, and a cheese board.

It was fun (and delicious!) to do something so different for dinner!!!

For dessert, we had the angel food cake I made, served with strawberries and a cream cheese filling/frosting…it was really good!

Easter is, of course, the highlight of the church year, and our celebration this year at church and home was especially lovely!