Merry Christmas

I can't believe it is the last day of 2013.

I am still stuck on Christmas. I feel like there are so many things that didn't happen. Not that we were busy. Mostly because of finances. We missed out on baking for friends and neighbors. We missed out on making everyone who is somebody an ornament. We missed spreading holiday cheer wherever we went. Well, we might have done that one. You would have thought that those things would have made for a lonely, tragic Christmas but it didn't. Yeah, job situations have made living day to day very, very difficult but there is no tragedy in that.

Our faith in our Savior has carried us through day to day. I feel that these past 5 years, we have been stripped of everything. Jobs, house, bank accounts, retirement......but not our Faith in God.

Our Heavenly Father has blessed us beyond anything that we could ever think of. We were headed for a simple Christmas this year. We knew it back in September and had prepared the kids for that. It took pressure off of Kirk and I. It is a real bummer to fail in your teenagers eyes. We were doing pretty good at looking like we really did know something and that we were all going to have a wonderful year in spite of what it might look like on the outside. We have always talked about how quality is more important that quantity, no matter what it is that you are talking about. Especially family relationships.

Our family was adopted by a Secret Santa....well, more like 40 people. And they blessed us way beyond the simple expectations that we had. It has been a very humbling experience. How do you accept such gracious generosity? How do you say "thank you" to something like this? How DO you say thank you to something like this. In our situation there aren't any words that describe how we feel. It is easy to feel like a loser when you don't have any words to say to someone who has blessed your family beyond anything that we could ever do.

But, that is how God works.

He does things that you just can't put words to.

God blesses us every day.

He has proven to us that the sun comes up every day and we will be taken care of.

I want to give our Secret Santas all the credit but I know that if God hadn't worked through their hearts, we would have had a much different Christmas. One that we were planning on. I think I like our Father in Heaven's plan better.
His was WAY more fun!