Tales Of The Holidays And A Prayer Request

Yes, technically this should probably be split into two posts, but I don't feel like typing out two different posts at the moment. So, if you're really interested in reading this post, get yourself a hot drink (tea, if you must, otherwise I'd prefer you sip something else), sit back, and begin this epistle.

Okay, so maybe not epistle, but it is kinda long... and sorry... I didn't have any pics to upload.

So much has happened in the last month that I hardly know where to begin. I have the sensation that I am sitting down to write a letter to good friends to inform them of a great chunk of my life that I have neglected to mention here on this blog. Hopefully, you will forgive my rambling, for I fear that I will fall into some sort of insane sentences and garbled paragraphs. 

But anywho... to begin the tales of the holidays:

December flew by so quickly that it almost seemed as if the month had never happened at all. The first few days found my family in deep practice for three Christmas concerts. (You do recall that my family sings together, right?) On the 10th, we sang for an hour in a local mini "mall," a grand mix of fun and sacred songs. However, due to weather and bad timing, we only had a few people show up. We had so many friends tell us (slightly paraphrased), "We're so sorry we missed it! When are you singing again?" that my dad scheduled for us to give another concert on the 20th when we were able to invite a lot more people. We debuted some new songs this year, including a special rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas and Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella. For the third concert, we were supposed to sing for a local nursing home, but the concert got postponed for later in January when the facility was quarantined due to a flu outbreak. 

Our classy blood cousins' cousins came up for Christmas this year, and after years of hearing about them, we were finally able to meet. The evenings we gathered together for fellowship found us eating way too many cookies, talking so much that some of us nearly lost our voices the next day, and playing swell games around the dining room table, namely Four on a Couch. 

Christmas Eve my family visited a local nursing home (not the one with the flu) and caroled. It's amazing the blessing you yourself can recieve while being a blessing to others. It may seem a little thing to simply give some of your time and talent to bring a smile to the face of someone, but the feeling of joy his or her smile creates in your heart is something that you want to hold on to. 

Christmas Day dawned early for me, waking up at 6:15 when my little sister, KT Bugs, crawled into my bed, asking to snuggle, which we did until the rest of my family decided it was time to get up around 9 o'clock. My mom made our family's traditional breakfast: egg sausage casserole and cranberry coffee cake. My father read aloud the Christmas story from Luke 2 as we sat around the table and marveled at the wondrous gift of love that God sent the world. Then we all settled around our Christmas tree to exchange gifts. I was muchly excited to give Teddy and KT the doll dresses I made, two replicas of Disney princesses' dresses: Belle for Teddy and Rapunzel for KT Bugs. My family, it is obvious, knows me absolutely too well, for I recieved 7 books for Christmas, including a splendid, glorificous copy of Bleak House! My sister also gave me a brick-sized volume of Les Mis, which I shall dig into once I am done with Bleak House.

On the Thursday following Christmas, our church hosted a New Years' Taco Bar. It would have been pizza, but unfortunately, many of the families in our church have allergies, so tacos was a much simpler meal. It was here that I was first introduced to the word game Probe, which is now a big favorite of mine. For those of you who know Probe, you know with me how awesome it is, and fun it is to do words like auxillary. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, go find someone who knows how to play Probe and convince them to teach you, too.

And then our CBCs came for New Years (you all should know what that means by now...)! As would be expected, we stayed up after midnight on December 31st, singing and praying the new year in. We also made up a new way to play Apples to Apples, ate way too much pizza, memorized epic songs from our favorite soundtracks, and probably played The Wilds Bunch: Takin' A Break CD nonstop for three days straight. You know, all the normal stuff you do with CBCs. And then we ended it all with a cold. I'm still taking cough medicine. But what's a little cold to a grand, old visit with epic CBCs? 

And more stuff happened, but I have either forgotten it or I am planning to writer about it later, so all of that will have to suffice for now.

I do have a huge prayer request to share with you all, and I do hope that you all have read down this post far enough to get to this point. 

My mom's parents visited my cousins this year for Christmas, and on the way home on the 27th, my grandparents got into a car accident, and my grandmother was seriously injured. She is still in the hospital, and has had quite a few surgeries on her legs. Praise the Lord, Granddad was unhurt, and Grandmom is doing better, but I would like to ask you all to add them to your prayer list. Please pray that the Lord would give the doctors wisdom as they care for Grandmom, that she would heal quickly, and that He would grant peace and comfort to my entire family. My parents are going to go visit them in the hospital on Saturday, and we kids are staying with our blood cousins for a few days while they're gone. I know that God has His hands in this, and I know that He will be honored and gloried in whatever may happen, but it comforts my soul to know that so many people are lifting my grandparents up in prayer. 

Many thanks, and God bless!