Advent - Day 24

Happy Christmas Eve, y'all!  We spent the day at my sister's house, celebrating with my mom and dad and grandparents and us sisters and our families.  We had such a good time together!  After eating lunch, the first gifts were stockings from Nana...

My mom always does the best stockings.

Then we started in on the gift opening frenzy.  It was so chaotic...as always!  Hunter and Char opened clothes first...

Hunter pulled that hat and mitten set out, said "Clothes!" excitedly, and then moved on to the next gift.  He didn't even look at the tons of other clothes in there, but what do you expect from a 4 year old!

Then H opened his remote control Mater from Grandpa...

And Char opened her Belle dress...

 and Belle accessories from Nana...

Hunter is really into guns right now.  All he wants for Christmas is a "big nerf gun like Zack's".  He got 4 guns tonight, but still broke into tears when it was all over because he didn't get his "big nerf gun like Zack's".  I finally ended up basically telling him he'd be getting it from us tomorrow.  That seemed to soothe the pain a little, and he was able to enjoy his four other guns...

Charlotte loves to take her own diapers and put them on her baby dolls, so Kate made her these adorable hand-made diapers and wipes!  That is a wipe in my hand and the wipe holder in my lap...

I'll have to take pictures of the diapers later...they are precious!

Grandpa also got Hunter a light saber...

And he got Char a rocking bassinet for her babies...

After we were done opening gifts, Zack, Charlotte and Hunter went into Vanesa's room, turned out the lights and played with their light sabers (Zack's and Hunter's)...

I think Char's Cinderella shoes go great, don't y'all?  (She got a 4 pack of princess shoes...Cinderella, Belle, Ariel, and Tiana.)

Our verses tonight were Galatians 4:4-5 "But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship."

I have chills reading that.  What an amazing gift. 

Hunter was telling me on the drive home that he hates Christmas. (He's really into making extreme statements like that lately...I hate Christmas...I don't want to go to heaven...I don't like God.  My BFF, Laura, assures me that he's just learned the power of his own words and he has to work it out, but it still distresses me.)  So I was explaining to him that Heaven is the most amazing, fun, beautiful place...better than we could ever imagine!  And Jesus chose to leave that wonderful place to come here to a painful, hurting world and die a painful, horrific death all so that we could go be with him in heaven one day.  (Of course he responded to this by telling me that heaven was boring and you do boring things there, so he really doesn't think he wants to go...I'm holding out hope that he'll turn that around sooner rather than later.) 

As for me, I am so humbled by the thought of Christ's act of love for us.  My words are not eloquent enough to explain the depth of my feelings about this holiday.  But that's no surprise, really.  Who are we, compared to the soverign, holy Lord that we serve?  We are nothing. 

God amazes me continually.  And as an example of that, when we got home and opened the Christmas cards we'd received today, there was one from this sweet elderly couple at our church, and her final sentence in her hand-written note said this, "We also pray for your sweet children as they grow in the knowledge of the Lord and His Word and that their hearts will be open to receiving Christ as Savior (in His timing)."  After I read that, and now, I felt the lump rise in my throat.  God knew my worry over Hunter's comments, and he reassured me.  I hear your prayers, Carole.  Keep praying to me.  Cast your cares on me.  I hold your children in the palm of my hand, and I work everything out for good in my timing.

Looking forward to the joyous celebration of our Lord's birth tomorrow...