This time last year we had only been in Texas for a few months and I was still much too homesick to stick around here for the holidays. We were able to fly home for Thanksgiving and then drive home for Christmas only a few short weeks after that. It was wonderful, and good for my home-sick heart, but in the end, it was a lot of traveling in a short amount of time. We have decided, at least for now, that it's more practical for us to stay here for Thanksgiving. I can honestly say that I feel very content with that decision. As much as I would love to spend Thanksgiving with our extended family, I am equally as excited about figuring out how to make this Thanksgiving special for just the 3 of us.
Last year was a unique holiday season for us because somewhere in between our family holiday travels and Shawn's work travels, I completely ran out of time to decorate our house for Christmas. I barely listened to any Christmas music at all and the only truly festive thing we did was bake cookies for our neighbors. Now that Nicole is (almost) 2 and much more involved in our day-to-day life, I am looking forward to involving her in some holiday traditions and taking time to talk about the true meaning of it all.
First up. Christmas music starts playing in our house today! I know it's still so early, but my music loving toddler doesn't know any Christmas songs yet and I think singing them together will help me talk to her about the incredible thing that God did for us by sending His only Son Jesus here to earth to forgive our sins. Nicole already knows all about Santa but she has yet to learn about the true meaning of Christmas - the birth of our Savior. We don't usually listen to music together outside of the car but I am setting aside time each week for us to do some holiday baking together and plan on listening to Christmas music while we bake.
Which brings me to our next activity - planning who we will give Christmas cookies to. It's very important to me to cultivate a culture of generosity and kindness whenever it's appropriate. We try not to eat a lot of refined sugar on a regular basis, but I have few hesitations with bringing large amounts of sugar into our house for the next two months if it's going to give us a tangible way to show kindness to others. Last year we tried to give cookies to the neighbors immediately surrounding our house. We only successfully delivered cookies to 2 out of 4 of those houses, which was hugely disappointing to me. Up to that point we only knew 1 out of 4 of our neighbors and I really hoped Christmas was going to be the ice breaker we needed to introduce ourselves and extend kindness by dropping off cookies. As it turns out, the one family that we were able to share cookies with, who we didn't know at all, has now become great friends of ours. It wasn't until we had come back from traveling home from Christmas that they came over to thank us for the cookies. We finally introduced ourselves and since then we have a wonderful time getting to know them. Additionally, we've had lots of chances to be "neighborly" toward one another by doing things like sharing baby gear when it's needed and watching out for each other if a spouse is traveling.
God knew that He was going to use the simple offering of Christmas cookies to grow our roots here, deepen our community and enrich our relationships. I have been praying ever since about who God would like us to connect with this holiday season and it's been really fun to anticipate who else we might become better acquainted with this year. My strategic attempt to know the neighbors immediately surrounding our house has been thrown out the window and instead we are planning on bringing cookies to the people I've had the chance to exchange a few friendly hello's with while Nicole and I are out and about. I don't know their names or anything else about them just yet, but I am excited about what could happen. Even if our cookie deliveries end up with a few more hiccups than we currently anticipate, I am content knowing that this is an incredibly fun way to involve Nicole in thinking about others.
Lastly, other than a routine prenatal doctors appointment for me and dentist appointments for both Shawn and I, my calendar is filled with MOPS meetings! Due to a bunch of conflicts with the meeting space we use at a local church, we were only able to meet once in October. In November we're meeting 3 times, plus we have our final Bible study for Shepherding a Child's Heart. Nicole and I both love attending MOPS and I'm really looking forward to the consistency of seeing the women at my table each week.
Whatever happens to be on your plate this month, I hope you have many opportunities to connect with others.
With love,
Erica
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