Christmas Confusion

Some days, it really strikes me how different our Christmas holiday is from the first Christmas, when Jesus was born. It's not just the materialism and stuff that has began to personify Christmas, although granted, that is a stark contrast. When a dirty stable, full of hay and animal droppings and a young, poor couple are looked at next to my home; large, comfortable, and warm with plenty all around me, it makes me pause to think.

But this year, I've been considering how much confusion and heart-break must have surrounded that first Christmas. It began with Mary when she heard the news from the angel that she was pregnant. Her immediate response was confusion [she was greatly troubled], something I can understand. Surely, she had dreams about how her life would go - being married to Joseph and beginning a home on her own terms; living perhaps poorly, but comfortably and happily with her husband; raising a good, normal, God-honoring Jewish family. And then this - an unexpected pregnancy? That changed everything for her, and she probably felt like her dreams were shattered. I'm right there with her this year - crying out to God, "Why me? Why wasn't the future I had planned good enough? This may be better, but it doesn't seem like it right now. I don't want confusion and heart-ache - I just want a normal life with Joseph, like I had planned." And yet, in the end, her response was correct. In just that short time with the angel, she was able to submit to God. That doesn't mean she wasn't still mourning over her lost dreams, but she was accepting that God's will was superior, and recognizing that she wanted it more than she wanted her own dreams. And we know it turned out to be an amazing plan - God himself called her blessed among women, and she was.

Joseph was confused and heart-broken too. With the news of Mary's pregnancy, his dreams must have crumbled and his reputation was likely marred forever. His initial response was just like a man - do what I can to fix the problem! He chose the "proper" and right route, what God had laid out as law for the Jewish people, and something he had every right to do - "divorce" her, or break off the commitment of future marriage they had made. He must have cared about Mary, because he wanted to do it quietly, so she wasn't disgraced. We don't hear a lot about Joseph's heart in the matter, or what he felt about Mary. But when the angel came to him, he said [do not be afraid] - what was Joseph afraid of? His reputation? Being responsible for a child conceived by the Holy Spirit? Or marrying a women who was of questionable purity, and who he may not have even "loved"? I'm sure he mourned over his lost reputation, and the loss to his relationship with Mary. While they still got married, this changed the nature of that relationship forever. But again, Joseph ultimately obeyed God. Through his heart-ache and fear, he stood up and fought for his relationship with Mary, even though it was "marred" in the world's eyes. He accepted this change in plans, knowing that even though it was different, it would be better than he had imagined.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." -Isaiah 55:8-9

No matter how good or right our plans may be, God's ways are always better. I think it's appropriate to be heart-broken and confused when we discover that our plans won't come to pass. God says he is near to the broken-hearted, so it's clear that he understands it's a part of life and the human condition. I also think it's okay to mourn over our lost plans, when they were good and wholesome and of God. He made us to be creative beings, and expects that we will use our imaginations to dream of what we want in life. But ultimately, we must come to Him in humble obedience - realizing that the things life brings us (even the hard ones) are under His control. Nothing takes Him by surprise, and He promises to work all things to good for those who love Him. Quiet trust is what He asks of us.

The Whirlwind of Christmas

This was actually taken over Thanksgiving break.
Stress relief after an afternoon of family photos!

This was part of the crowd we had over
for our first annual cookie decorating party!

In our Christmas pajamas!

Christmas afternoon at the Hickles' house
was full of singing and music of all varieties!

Family Defined

Christmas Eve is here, and I'm sure many of you are off to see Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins. Christmas is one of the best times of the year for spending time with family. Traditions abound, and so much love is shared - I know how much I always enjoy spending time with my siblings and parents this time of year.

But recently, I was thinking about Jesus (after all, Christmas is about Him, right?) and His response to family. Remember this passage from Luke?

"Now Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him, but they were not able to get near him because of the crowd. Someone told him, 'Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.' He replied, 'My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.'" [8:19-21]

I think we often read this with subtle shock, as Jesus seems to totally set aside his mother and brothers. Were they really that unimportant, that he wouldn't give them any kind of special treatment at all? I think though, that Jesus is here just blowing open our definition of family. While family is fantastic, I think we often have a tendency, especially around Christmas, to narrow our view of who "counts" as family. But if we truly desire to live like Jesus did, we'll have to expand our definition as well.

Family is defined as "those who hear God's word and put it into practice." In the Hall household, extended relatives have often been far away during the holidays, so I think we kind of fell into this broader definition of family by default. We have many "adopted" Aunts and Uncles, Grandparents and Cousins who we've spent our holidays with. Just today, our house was full of friends, decorating cookies, and we had dinner with our most recent adopted Grandparents, Jan and Gary.

Even Jesus shared His first Christmas with people who weren't blood relatives. The shepherds and the wisemen heard God's word (from the angels, and the star and prophecies), and put it into practice by seeking for the baby. Can you imagine Mary's discomfort? With all the worrying we do about getting the house clean for company. . . she had just had a baby. In a stable, no less. Not exactly a setting you want "non-family" people to see you in. And yet, going back to what Jesus said, they are family.

I think this challenges us to let go of our narrow definition of family, and the stress that comes with it - cleaning frenzies and putting on our "perfect" behavior. Who can we include as "family" this year? And how can we change our hearts, so we can focus more on loving them as family, rather than impressing them?

Christmas in Georgia

Q: What do you get when you combine 2 large families and 2 grandparents, a small farm house in Georgia, a horse, and countless small motorized vehicles?

A: 21 people and a heck of a good time!

This was our Christmas adventure for the year. Our family road tripped down to Georgia on December 22nd, in two vehicles, and were able to spend 5 days reconnecting with our family and having a splendid time all around. Thank you, Dave Halls, for hosting us for so long! Here are some pictures of our fun:

Small cousin fun - make believe!

Ever heard of the Red-Green Show?
These goons got videos of them for Christmas, hence the costumes.

Andy was excited about Christmas.

This is Annie. She is a life-saver, folks. You see, although Annie is 21, she is the only cousin on both sides who has ever been "my" cousin. Besides being "my" cousin, she is just a fantastic girl - SO much fun, and also a very godly example to all the little kiddos running around, and to me. I love you girl! Thanks for a great Christmas together!

My darling grandparents. They truly are wonderful, and I SO enjoyed my time with them! Aren't they precious? We even got to have "story time" one night, when they told funny stories about their high school years.

Best. Reaction. To. A. Christmas. Gift. Ever.
Grandpa and Grandma got Isaac this musket for Christmas.
Needless to say, boy + gun = ecstatic!

Beautiful girls! This is Eva, and my sister Abby.

Silly girls. :)

They decided to drive the go-kart in the mud. Go figure.

Little girls getting in on the action!

Talking time - always gotta have that!

More play-time

Pie Making! Grandma is a kitchen queen, and I think she loves watching her granddaughters go crazy in the kitchen. Eva and I had fun with that!

So there you go! That was our Christmas holiday this year.

Finals and Winter Break

(This is my desk, preparing to study. And taking pictures

of my studying, rather than actually studying.)

My last post on here related to procrastinating from studying for finals. That seems so very long ago! I am happy to report that I made it through finals week in one piece, and arrived safely home Friday evening (despite a short and tumultuous "scenic route"). I opened the door to our house and was greeted by a roomful of giggling girls. Abby was having a Christmas Tea for her book club, and I had the pleasure of watching the girls enjoy themselves, serving them tea, and watching The Scarlet Pimpernel with them. It was a nice evening, and the house looked so wonderful and Christmas-y, it made me feel warm inside.

Saturday was spent puttering around the house, getting comfortable once again in our large home with the many people who reside here. We also spent a significant amount of time readying ourselves for the Christmas Ball that night, put on by a group who does English Country Line Dances in Salem and Rolla. Mum, Dad, Abby, Zeke, and I all went - we dressed up and had a wonderful time.

Sunday night, we had dinner with our friends Jan and Gary Bloom - an exciting, thrilling dinner of course - and then went over to Rolla Bible Church to see their annual Christmas program. I had been invited to go over to the Hickles' house afterward, and didn't think anything of it when Mark seemed to take a while to leave the church and head back to his house. We walked into their kitchen, and I noticed a cake on the table - before I had time to process why, my friends jumped out from all over and yelled, "Surprise!" And boy, was I surprised! My 18th birthday was celebrated in grand fashion that night, with cake, Apples to Apples, basketball (in the cold, with the girls watching like old times), and wonderful time with friends. What a perfect evening - and what wonderful friends I have!

Monday was another great night - our family went caroling at two nursing homes with the Hickles and Nisbetts. It's the first time I've ever been Christmas Caroling in four part harmony, and I must admit that I stayed silent a lot of the time, just so I could listen. Do you remember going caroling when you were a kid? If you're like me, everything was fine as long as you were singing - but then the adults insisted that you walk around and say hi to the old people. That was the worst! They smelled funny, and always wanted to hold your hand, and you never knew what to say to them, because they were complete strangers! Well, I've grown out of that - actually, that's the part I look forward to now. To see their faces light up when you walk over, and you're the one who reaches out for their hand. . . Definitely worth it. Try it sometime - maybe even not around Christmas, but just sometime when you're feeling down. After caroling, we had dinner at Hickles' and then played games for a while. Then, I went over to the Quakkelaars' house and played Santa Claus, wrapping up presents for their early Christmas celebration the next morning, while Mr. and Mrs. Q did some last minute shopping. It was fun to imagine those kids opening their gifts the next morning, and praying for each of them as I wrapped up their individual gifts.

Here are some random pictures from break so far:

Umm - this handsome guy is my little brother.
Girls - stay away. I will fend you off with a fork.

This is me with my two little sisters.
Don't ask about the hair.
One got curls, the other got blond - me?
I'm stuck with straight and brown.
(Okay, I lied - the curls aren't natural, but still!)
Oh - and this here is Andy. My only older sibling.
I think he is helping Mum in the kitchen.
Or rather. . . not helping. Mum in the kitchen.

Then Tuesday morning - bright and early off to Georgia! (More on that to come. . .)

Take a deep, deep breath!

You caught me. . . I am procrastinating! To be perfectly honest, most of my longest and best blog posts come from complete and total procrastination. I think it's because of something my Mum always has warned us against - Disobeying is still disobeying, even if the other thing you are doing is a good thing. ;) But as I am 17 and master of my own destiny (or at least pretty much free to decide how to spend my time), I'm not disobeying. Just procrastinating.

So I have this huge duffel bag, an over-stuffed cloth Aldi bag, and several "carry-ons" to unpack, and one very scattered and messy room to tidy up, and three very late Christmas gifts to finish. But instead of doing those things, I spent my evening, 1.) playing Blurt with Zeke and Abby, 2.) taking a bubble bath, 3.) making myself a scrumptious cup of tea, 4.) unpacking our family camera, 5.) unpacking my iPod and setting it on my radio docking station thingy, with the shuffle on the genre "soundtracks" (Mark McKenzie heaven!), and 6.) crawling in bed with my laptop and cup of tea, downloading 171 photos from our trip, and getting ready to edit and post the ones that I want you to see! If all that isn't procrastination in its highest form, I don't know what is.

I will take a deep breath (as the title of this post suggests) and begin the saga of "The Hall Family Christmas vacation 2008" (right after I find my computer charger in this messy room of mine. . . oh, I think it's in one of the unpacked bags. lol). Before you start reading, I suggest you take a deep breath too. . .

You faithful (and probably fellow) procrastinator,
Rebekah

*Well, I have finished my posting. You can start right below this one, and work your way down - I put them in backwards order, so that by starting with "St. Paul - Monday and Tuesday" you will be in chronological order. Enjoy the photos! This only took about 3 hours, but I am exhausted. In the words of Dr. Suess ". . . and now my story is all told." Merry Christmas everyone.

St. Paul - Monday and Tuesday

Here begins the great Hall Family Christmas Vacation, 2008!

We left Rolla Monday night, after basketball practices, and drove through the night. On a weekend trip to Denver a few summers ago, we discovered that we can create a sort of bed in the back of our 12 passenger van - by taking the back seat out, packing all the bags under a large (custom-cut) sheet of plywood, and placing a futon on the plywood, a quite comfortable resting place is made. Isaac and Libeth slept in their carseats (how do kids do that?) and the rest of us rotated on the bed. Dad drove most of the 10 hours - the weather was a bit yucky, and the roads sort of icy.

We pulled in at Grandma's house at 8:30 am. Naturally, communication had gotten somewhat mixed up, and she wasn't expecting us for 12 more hours! Still, we managed to adjust and make it one more day of fun! We helped her with the cleaning and decorating she had been planning to do, and had an extra day of snow play with the cousins! We also got in quite a few naps, to prepare us for a busy, bustling week of fun.

Zeke, trimming the tree

Isaac (this picture is crooked because I have a nervous hand under his rear end as he balances on the step stool)

Abby - she stuck with it, and did the bulk of the work. Good job luv!

Our "supervisor"

Zeke, braving the cold for some snow-play.

Grandma calls this style "Minnesota Chic" - the way she tells it, if all your snow clothes coordinate, well, "You ain't from around here, now that's for sure."

Grandma, explaining the rules to "Fox and Geese"

Nap time all around!

Cousin Alex

Our Happy Birthday Jesus cake, iced and decorated by Mr. Enthusiastic there

The rest of the week was filled with fun and games, activities and lots and lots of food. But one of my favorite parts was the music. Abby had brought along her trumpet, and our extra coronet. Upon arrival, we found that Grandpa had three trumpets of his own, one baritone, and an alto saxaphone! Well, let me tell you, we had quite the band going then! Grandpa led the group, harmonizing away on his trumpet - Mum took the melody, magically remember the fingering and notes, and playing entirely by ear (she hasn't played for years and years - I am 17, and I have never heard her play) - Grandma ocassionally accompanied on the piano, when she wasn't working away in the kitchen - Abby did an outstanding job playing by ear, taking the melody line and making some real music - Andy would pop in every now and then with a trumpet (which he has never played before in his life - hey, it added character to the mix) - Zeke . . . oh I guess he didn't have his drum, so he didn't join in - and Dad was truly the jack-of-all-trades, alternating between piano, trumpet, and baritone (he had never played the baritone before, but picked it up quite handsomly) - Isaac, Elizabeth, and I all listened with admiration and awe (except Elizabeth, who held her hands over her ears most of the time). It was amazing - I wish you could have been there! Throughout the week this chorus of heavenly sounds accompanied much of our activities. I felt proud to be a part of such a family!

Abby and Dad

St. Paul - Thursday and Friday

Thursday was Christmas Day, of course. Since we had done the majority of the present opening the night before, Christmas morn we headed off to a church in a neighboring town for their service. The family who did the service, the Andersons, were friends from California. He was the pastor of our church for many years, and we grew up with their younger kids. They didn't know that our family was coming, so it was very fun to surprise them and to catch up on life. Their new son-in-law preached a powerful message, and we also heard Silent Night in two languages - Japanese, and a language spoken in Madagascar (I don't recall its name). Afterwards, we talked until someone noticed the janitor, quietly standing by the door, waiting to lock-up and get home for his Christmas! We wrapped things up in prayer, and talked our way out of the building and to our cars.

The afternoon was spent with snow play and around the house relaxing. Mum, Grandma, and I sipped tea and watched White Christmas while Dad took the kids to the park to help them build a fantastic igloo. After dinner, we opened the gifts that were from Mum and Dad to us, and spent some more time just being around each other. It is a really good feeling when you honestly enjoy getting to spend time with the ones closest to you, isn't it?

Friday we ventured out of the house and visited the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis. It had formerly been the Gold Medal Flour mill, so they had a test kitchen there with sample cookies and other yummy things.

The boys, trying their hand at Playdough

(Libeth was showing them how it is done)

Grandma and I, perusing some of the many

cookbooks they had stashed in the test kitchen.

We also visited The Guthrie, a terribly unique theatre right next door.

And, we drove past the Thrivent building on our way back to St. Paul.

It was a very dreary day, but we had fun despite that!

St. Paul - Saturday and Sunday

Saturday was blown in by a visit from old friends, the Christenson's. They were a part of our church in California, and Mr. Christenson was the pastor who baptized Dad. We had a great breakfast of bacon and waffles with them, catching up on news and having some in depth theological discussions. :) Then, the late morning and afternoon were spent ice-skating! We all bundled up and headed out, even Elizabeth and Mum. Elizabeth pulled her sled around, and the rest of us skated away - the boys even played a full-on hockey game! Us ladies bowed out after about an hour. We went home, got lunch ready for the men, then headed off on the great shopping expedition. I only bought 3 things and I was very proud of myself for this frugality. I believe I only spent about. . . 15 dollars too!

Sunday, we went to Grandma and Grandpa's church (although we didn't walk this time!) and our family sang "Angels We Have Heard On High" in the four-part harmony we learned. Originally, we had just prepared it to sing for Grandma and Grandpa. . .but, after singing for them Saturday night, Grandma asked if we would please sing Sunday morning in church. So we did. I think we were okay - Dad said we didn't go flat like we tend to. :) Mum and Isaac took the soprano (along with ocassional assistance from Elizabeth), Zeke and I covered alto (okay, so I pretty much lip-sync), Abby was our strong tenor (yes, she can hit every note), and Andy and Dad handled the bass (although poor Andy came in about 3 weeks after the rest of us had already been working on it, he did a fine job). It was at the very least a joyful noise to the Lord!

After church, we packed up the van (no easy feat, what with the additional presents and shopping items!) and headed for a last lunch. We dined at the traditional "Mickey's Diner" in downtown St. Paul. An experience to be sure - if you ever go to St. Paul, you must try it out. And if you've ever seen Mighty Ducks - it's the diner in those movies.

Before I move on . . . a HUGE thank you to Grandma and Grandpa Hall, for putting up with our invasion for nearly a week! Your flexibility and hospitality are to be greatly commended. You are truly the greatest paternal grandparents a kid could have. Grandma - all your amazing meals and fun little traditions and decorations made it really special. I will always treasure our tea-times, bustling around the kitchen with you, and laughing together as we watched White Christmas. I have become quite certain that you are a" kindred spirit". Grandpa - thanks for spending time talking with Dad about all that "Lutheran stuff." I know that he appreciates the it so very much, and I love you all the more for taking the time to listen and help mentor him in this thing we call life. The influence you have had, and continue to have on him trickles down to me each and every day. I love you both!