I can see it happening already. Halloween is over and Christmas has sprung in all its glory over every department of every store. And I always feel bad. Because in America we have a holiday called, Thanksgiving, which we always rush past as we swap our skeletons for Santa Clauses.
Growing up, our church would always pause our Sunday school for a week or two and we would revisit the story of the Pilgrims. Mind you, the Pilgrims were not the ones who abused the Native Americans living here. There’s very little ill will you can parse out from the story of the original Pilgrims. We have every reason in the world to retell this story of bravery and friendship that is the Thanksgiving story.
In short; these people came over to America to have the ability to worship God as they saw fit. However, the voyage was rough and many of them landed here in ill health—just before winter. The winter was very harsh and about 45 of the 102 Pilgrims died. Come spring, they were in need of help. There was a Native American named Squanto who had been kidnapped as a young man and taken to Europe where he was set free by a Monk and then trained to speak the language. Eventually, Squanto was able to buy passage back to America only to find the devastating fact that his entire village had been wiped out by illness in his absence. Then along came these English-speaking Pilgrims. Squanto demonstrates a huge amount of forgiveness and acts as an interpreter for these people who we refer to as the Pilgrims. The Native Americans teach the Pilgrims farming skills and the Pilgrims are able to stay and weather the winter. The harvest is bountiful and together they celebrate and offer thanks to God—not just for the food, I am sure, but also for the friendship that has been forged between these two very different people groups. This is a story that bears repeating through all the generations. This is a miraculous story of the best of human nature.
Here are some of the books and shows that I always enjoy this time of year to get me into the Thanksgiving mood and to make sure that I remember this season.
The Legend of Squanto by Focus on the Family Radio Theater
This is a dramatized version acted out by excellent actors of the story of Squanto. If you barely remember learning the story of Squanto in school I highly suggest that you either purchase this on CD (or download) or look up Focus on the Family’s daily radio broadcast where they usually play this story the days immediately preceding Thanksgiving.
Pocahontas Podcast by The History Chicks
The History Chicks host a podcast that is all about women throughout history. These two women will research a woman and put out an episode approximately once a month. They have an engaging style and are fun to listen to as they share the telling of the featured woman’s life. Check out episode 212 to hear Pocahontas’s story.
This is a short chapter book, perfect for a young reader, but is also a good refresher for adults too! The book tells us what drove the Pilgrims to move to Holland, and from there to make the voyage on the Mayflower, and what it looked like setting up a colony from scratch. While this book is much more factual than narrative it still has an engaging tone that keeps you engaged.
A Lion to Guard Us by Clyde Robert Bulla
I remember reading this book as a young reader (second or third grade) and absolutely loving it! This is the story of three children who, after the death of their father, are traveling across the ocean to start a new life in The New World. This is definitely a children’s book but that doesn’t mean you won’t get something out of it too! This is an excellent piece of historical fiction to introduce your children to the founding of the New World.
Why Thanksgiving by Steve Deace
This is for young children and is a faith-based book about why the Pilgrims decided to move to Holland and then to America—so they could worship God the way they wanted to! The colorful illustrations in this book will grab your child’s attention!
Hey! May I Send You Something?
If you are here, chances are you just might like my writing. (wink) If you Drop your email address in the box below I’ll save you time by emailing you the link every time a new post comes out!
You have Successfully Subscribed!
Disclosure
Please remember that this post contains affiliate links; that means if you click on the link, I will make a small commission at no extra cost to you. It’s a way to support my blog! I will only ever share an affiliate link if I love the product and think that you just might love it too!
For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.
Hebrews 12:6
I had wanted a kitten for forever. I remember when I was really little asking my mom if we could get a cat and she said no, namely because we had a cockatiel named Tweeter and cats and birds don’t mix well. I remember the day Tweeter died trying to look sad as I inquired if now that she had died, could we get a cat? The answer was still no.
Imagine then my delight when, at age 11, I discovered that the neighbor’s cat had kittens! There was just one problem—the cat had her kittens in the woods across the street and it was anyone’s guess where exactly these kittens were located. A few days after the kittens were born (momma cat had gotten considerably skinnier) we were on a family bike ride when we noticed momma heading into the woods. We stopped and watched as she disappeared behind a fallen tree. We hiked up the hillside and what did my wandering eyes behold, but five tiny baby kittens!
I think my mom knew as we carried the kittens down to the neighbor’s house that there was going to be no possible way to put off getting a cat for much longer. I basically lived at the neighbor’s house that summer, holding and playing with the kittens for hours a day. The neighbor had made a bed on her front porch for them and there was a slight slope between the porch and a covered pavilion that the kittens like to race back and forth between. One day my dad and I watched from the bottom of the slope as the only little black kitten raced up the hill and rolled on his back, batting and trying to get his mother to play with him as she was walking down the hill. They batted back and forth for a little bit before momma sat down and started licking her front paw—signaling that she was done. The kitten again rolled on his back and started swatting her front paw. She gave him a harder little swat as if to say, “No, I’m done. Go play with your brother.” Well, that little black kitten stood up, hissed, and did the curvy arched back thing that cats do when they are showing they have attitude.
Whack! Momma swatted him so hard that he rolled down the hill before he scampered off to the pavilion where his siblings were playing. That black cat would become our first cat and we named him Dickenz because boy, did he have an attitude and he sure could be a little dickens! To this day he was the sweetest cat I’ve ever had; he did have his moments of being bad! But he always came back to love us.
This reminds me of the story of David—I promise this is a compliment that I am comparing David to my cat! In the Bible, we hear a lot about David—like a lot! He was labeled by God as a man after God’s own heart. Such praise! But David was just a man, an imperfect one at that. David sinned, he committed adultery, and murder, but when confronted David was quick to repent and turn back to God.
Still, there were consequences for his sin. The first child David conceived with Bathsheba would die. God would ultimately bless them with another son, but David would have to pay for his sins. He would have to be disciplined by God for his sin in order to know true communion with God.
Being disciplined is never fun. I hated hearing that word growing up. But just as it was necessary for the momma cat to discipline her kittens, so it is necessary for God to discipline us—so that we can have the relationship with Him that He craves for us to have.
Hey! May I Send You Something?
If you are here, chances are you just might like my writing. (wink) If you Drop your email address in the box below I’ll save you time by emailing you the link every time a new post comes out!
You have Successfully Subscribed!
Disclosure
Please remember that this post contains affiliate links; that means if you click on the link, I will make a small commission at no extra cost to you. It’s a way to support my blog! I will only ever share an affiliate link if I love the product and think that you just might love it too!
Christmas isn’t quite here yet but it is close enough to start thinking about! If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know hardly anything gets quite as exciting as talking about Christmas decorating! Since I can hardly contain myself and have been counting down the days until I can start playing Christmas music, I have done a little looking to see what the trends are for Christmas in the year 2022. One of my favorite things about decorating is choosing a color palette and there are some really fun options this year.
An Overview
As far as an overview of the trends goes I am seeing three main categories:
A return to traditional Super classy and simple Cutting edge with crazy colors A Return to Traditional
This is one of the first years in a long time that I am seeing a return of the traditional Christmas color palette in a big way. Yes, red and green are traditional colors and by definition never completely go out of style but you haven’t seen these colors being featured as the main attraction. This year there is a resurgence of bright red in the Christmas color palettes—especially when paired with golds and champagnes. If you are a red fan, you can go all-out with it this year and be totally on-trend.
Super Classy and Simple
If you aren’t a big red person and don’t want the traditional Christmas feel in your Christmas decor this year, then another option we are seeing a lot of this year is green with whites, creams, champagnes, and light gold. This is a super classy look and can be paired down quite elegantly to keep things simple this holiday season.
Cutting Edge with Crazy Colors
I am not a trendsetter who enjoys being the one to push the limits but even I can enjoy some fun Christmas decorating this year in the form of neon Christmas colors. Fuchsia pink, electric blue, and bright purple are fun options that are showcasing this Christmas. I think this is a super-fun option for a child’s room!
Christmas Color Palettes That Are on Trend in 2022
So those are the main pockets of Christmas color trends but what about actual Christmas color palettes? In the traditional bucket of Christmas color palettes, I am seeing:
Red, gold, and, of course, green. Royal blue, silvers, and, of course, green. For simple color palettes:
Greens, beige, gold. Green, white, silver Green, white, gold Or basically any combination of the above colors!
For the Cutting Edge with Crazy Colors
Neon as mentioned above:
Fuchsia pink, electric blue, and bright purple Greens, silver, and lilac. I am seeing a lot of taking one main color, like lilac, royal blue, or red and running with it. The traditional colors are back, but this time they’re separated. Pick one classic and run with it!
What Else is Trending?
We are seeing a big return to pine greens this year. In the past few years, there have been lots of eucalyptus and non-traditional greens and that’s great! But traditional pine is coming back in a big way. Speaking of pine, that leads to the next trend.
Botanicals
Imagine having a Christmas greenhouse explode in your home and you’ll get the idea for the botanical trend we are seeing this year. Pine greenery, all other greenery, organic wood, and pinecones are hot this Christmas!
Velvet
Velvet has been making a comeback for a while now and, just like we are seeing lots of velvet pumpkins in the fall, we are seeing velvet Christmas bulbs this Christmas!
Go Simple by Adding a Big Bang
While Christmas vignettes sprinkled throughout your home are always lovely, try simplifying your decor with a few big “wow pieces” rather than several small vignettes. Try creating one big focal point for each room. Can you add a huge garland to your mantle and hang a big star ornament above it and call it a day? What about adding a pine garland someplace you might not usually add it—like your headboard?
Group Your Decor
If you have a collection, be it Christmas trees, a ceramic Christmas village, or candles, try grouping them all together to make a statement. This is always a good rule of thumb but it is also on trend for Christmas 2022.
I hope this helps to inspire you and get your creativity flowing for how to decorate your home for Christmas this year. Christmas is such a special time of year. I hope you can enjoy decorating your home—and then are able to slow down enough to enjoy it with the ones you love most and remember the reason for the season.
Hey! May I Send You Something?
If you are here, chances are you just might like my writing. (wink) If you Drop your email address in the box below I’ll save you time by emailing you the link every time a new post comes out!
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31 NIV
I had a month left of my pregnancy and I was over being pregnant. I started off with minimal symptoms—I hadn’t gotten bad morning sickness or anything—but going into the third trimester I started getting carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand and arm. My right hand was almost totally numb by the last month and at night I would get a horrible pain in my arm, a pain so severe it would awaken me and keep me up for hours.
It was after one such Saturday night that I found myself stumbling around trying to get ready for church. After finally pulling together an outfit, I couldn’t find any shoes that fit because my feet were so swollen. I found myself in a meltdown in front of my husband (remember the post where I said he is longsuffering!). To top it all off, it was time to leave—past time actually, but we wouldn’t be too late if I could find shoes that I could get on my swollen feet. As I stood there, having hardly slept, blubbering about how nothing fit, how uncomfortable I was and how tired I was, my husband, who was ready and waiting to walk out the door, mentioned that perhaps I should do church from home that day. I resisted this idea—we should go to church! But since I still had no shoes that fit, I was easily swayed into watching the sermon with my feet up at home rather than from a hard pew.
My husband left for church and I moped around for a few minutes. I was mad. I was so uncomfortable—I was mad my feet were swollen, and mad at myself for not pulling it together and going to church. I looked around, I didn’t want to waste my day being in a bad mood—I needed a distraction! The floor needed mopping and I had just enough time to do it before the church service started. So I started mopping.
There is something about using your hands and putting your whole body into something that is totally absorbing and grounding. There is something about the mundane that anchors us in a way that cannot be done through technology. There is something about experiencing the tactile world through this kind of work that can bring us closer to God. This kind of work can be done as a type of worship.
Of course I am not suggesting that we stop attending church and start cleaning during this time instead! Church and the Sabbath are important. But this particular Sunday I committed my mopping to the Lord and did it as an act of worship. I put my whole self into it and prayed while I mopped. And do you know what? I believe God honored it. I finished the mopping in time to start the service but I felt like I had already been to church and had worshiped.
There are many things we have to do in this life that we would probably rather not do; the boring, the mundane, the difficult, and the dirty things in life. It’s easy to write it all off as meaningless, pointless, worthless. It’s easy to get sloppy with it and think that it doesn’t matter. It does matter though. In Colossians 3:17 we are told, “And whatever you do or say, do as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” We also hear this again in I Corinthians, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (NIV) We hear echoes of this throughout scripture.
So whatever you are called to do, be it boring and mundane, or exciting and interesting, do it as unto the Lord, do it as worship, and commit your works to Him.
Hey! May I Send You Something?
If you are here, chances are you just might like my writing. (wink) If you Drop your email address in the box below I’ll save you time by emailing you the link every time a new post comes out!
Can you believe that Thanksgiving is less than a month away! I wrote my posts on Fall Decorating Trends 2022, and Fall Decorating Ideas 2022 to give you some ideas for fall decorating but, if you are hosting, you might like a few ideas of how to tweak things so your decor looks a little more … Thanksgiving-ish. Sometimes it is nice to just give a nod to the fact that by Thanksgiving a lot of the leaves have fallen, and while it’s not quite Christmas time yet, it is definitely starting to look more like winter—particularly if you live in the north! Here are a few ideas to tweak your fall decorations to welcome in the Thanksgiving season. Say goodbye to spooky and hello to the time of year to be especially thankful and remembering our blessings.
First Thing First
You know what I always say is the first step before decorating—purging and tidying up! Time to put away any of those jack-o-lanterns and anything of the spooky nature. For fall, including Halloween, I like to stick to more of a harvest theme: pumpkins, branches, cornstalks, that sort of thing, rather than anything spooky. If you are someone who likes to decorate with ghosts and skeletons, now is time to pack them up.
Your Color Palette
If you do more of a traditional decor color palette for fall that consists of yellow, orange, and red, try editing down your colors. I would take out anything yellow and anything that is a super bright, fall color. By the time Thanksgiving rolls around, the colors in nature have started to fade considerably. I did a neutral fall decor this year consisting of white, creams, green, and browns and I love how this naturally lends itself to fall decor!
Mirror Nature
Another thing I always say is to mirror nature. As I mentioned before, Thanksgiving isn’t quite winter—but almost! I think mixing in a few red berries into a centerpiece is totally within reason. Items like twine balls, pinecones, and real or faux branches are perfect filler decor for this time of year. Now is also a great time to incorporate deer antlers into your décor. Antlers, also known as sheds, fall off of the male deer every winter so take a walk—you just might find some!
You can also try adding frosted greenery, or a spray of frosted berries to your decor. Play with adding these to your centerpiece or to a fall vignette. I love adding some sprays of evergreens (dried, real, or faux) to my late-fall centerpieces.
Warm It Up
This is the perfect time to pull out your white candles—be they pillar candles, votive candles, or a traditional candlestick. Remember, all of these come in battery options too, if you aren’t crazy about an open flame in your home. If you want to dress it up even more, you can place votive candles in mercury glass votive holders and thereby add some sparkle.
Also if you were waiting, I am giving you permission to pull out all the warmest throws you have packed away! Pull out those chunky knits, faux furs, and plaid throws and enjoy them!
I hope this helps inspire you to play with your decor this Thanksgiving and helps you to create a cozy home that you and your family can curl up in and enjoy as we enter this holiday season!
Hey! May I Send You Something?
If you are here, chances are you just might like my writing. (wink) If you Drop your email address in the box below I’ll save you time by emailing you the link every time a new post comes out!
