I have had such a blessed Christmas, and those blessings just keep producing a great big Happy Ball inside of me just like when it snows and you take a little bit of snow and start rolling it in the snow and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I feel so blessed to have the children we have. They made me proud as we headed over to the Moravian Home Church in downtown Winston Salem an hour and a half early and not complaining one drop. Aunt Connie was up....Randy's sister from Florida whom I love dearly, and whose husband was in Africa but was here is spirit. He sent red beautiful roses to remind us that his love was sent from afar and he was thinking of us. We missed him, but were comforted by our early Christmas with him, tree and all, right before Thanksgiving here in Winston Salem.
The Moravian Love Feast service was so beautiful. (Thanks, Bo.) We got the very last seats for 4 and sat 5 at the very back of the church. We sat on wooden school chairs with one cheek on each chair and loved it. They obviously still have the hanging of the greens, an olde English tradition, and fresh greenery was strung in huge clusters from the walls to the center of the ceilings, as was the front of the pulpit area. I felt like a veteran this year at the feast. I didn't look down, feeling guilty because I was eating and drinking in church, and I made it a point to savor every sip of that sweet coffee and sweet roll in the Name of the Lord. I felt loved, LOVED, and wanted to just hug everyone I saw on the way out...until I saw what I thought were carolers outside. Church members were explaining what had just taken place and my first thought was, "I wish they'd quit talking to the carolers so they would sing." It was snowing and the church bells were ringing and I felt like I was in the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life." As I walked by "the carolers" I realized they were Quakers or Amish and for whatever reason, had found their way to this little piece of history in the center of Winston Salem on a cold snowy night. What blessed my heart even more was to look over at the kids and see them singing the traditional hymns of their past. (We are not a musically inclined family, so this was huge to me, as I always tell them, "You'd better learn all the church songs down here as we will probably be singing them in heaven.")
I cannot believe that I got to make so many wonderful gifts this year. I made boxwood wreathes from Brookberry Farm English boxwood....really from England, but not exactly from the farm...it worked; homemade gift enclosures and cards; food and I even painted a Brookberry Farm ornament for the ornament exchange at the clubhouse right before Christmas. It only took me a year to paint, and I had to take a picture of it and the person who "WON" it. She was a new resident and she was so happy to commemorate her first Christmas here with a hand-painted ornament. It was just another thing that made me HAPPY! There's so much more. I really am once again reminded that "the simplest things remind us of all that we have to be thankful for."
Happy New Year! May you be blessed with Happiness the year through!
