From Gretchen, Ashleigh, Chantel, Jeannie, Elisabeth and Lanier, fondest wishes to you all for the Happiest of Holidays and for all the best of God’s blessings in the New Year! We hope that you have enjoyed celebrating the birth of our Savior with families and loved ones, and that this blessed Christmas week to come would be a time of refreshment and joy as you continue to reflect on the stupendous Gift of His coming to us.

We’ll be back around New Year’s…look for a post from Gretchen! An in the meantime, click over to Boundless to enjoy the gift of two very special posts by our own talented Elisabeth that will doubtless bless your hearts as profoundly as they did mine:

Tonight in Bethlehem

Part One

Part Two

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

adapted from my journal

On Christmas Eve morning I was up at five. I wondered if any of my neighbors were astir at that hour, but all the other houses through the trees were dark. It was my own, private, precious hour with Jesus—on a day when His humanity is nearer to my heart than any other. I would not have traded it for silver and gold. It shines in my heart yet as an unspeakable gift from Him—I have no words.

When I first stepped into my dark kitchen that morning a silver tide of moonlight was pouring in from the windows above the sink. The moon itself, a tremendous and luminous sphere, was sailing calmly through an untroubled sky of velvety blue, with a single star—the star of the morning—waiting attendance upon the regal passage. It was so beautiful—the light all tangled up in the branches of the water oak outside and casting its pale glory over frost-encrusted yard and pasture and silent winter garden—that I literally caught my breath. It hurt me to look at it, and yet I could not get enough. I lighted the gas jet under the tea kettle and just stared and stared. I hated to turn on the lights in the den to banish such a radiance.

After my devotions, I fell to setting the tables, moving about as quietly as I could, yet with a growing mirth at what day the coming dawn was hailing and what happiness would soon be filling these rooms and sitting at these tables. As I worked, I was blessedly conscious of what was happening outside—the moon dropped almost reluctantly into the west, behind the great oak at the corner of the pasture by the cemetery, and from behind the woods to the east the day began to spring. The sky paled to a breathless blue, the gate of the day grew rosy, and soon a glory of another kind was spilling over treetops and lawn and setting all the frost crystals to glittering like so many diamonds. It was utterly pure and beautiful, my own special possession. And to think that I might have missed it—to think of how many other glorious dawns I have passed in the ignorance of sleep!! I always say that I love a cloudy Christmas Eve best, and a gloriously sunny Christmas Day—but I’d not send back the sweet splendours my Lord sent this year.

And so, just before ten, I got into my new red dress—finished at the characteristic eleventh hour—and dashed into the kitchen, just in time for Once in Royal David’s City, broadcast live right into my den all the way from King’s College in Cambridge. That sacred moment always makes the world seem smaller and our beloved England so much closer to us in time and space. We sat on the sofa hand in hand and listened, breathless, as the airy strains grew into a full choir and finally swelled with the organ and audience and what seemed like all the combined worshippers of ages past. I listened, as I always do, with a catch in my throat and tears in my eyes, to the Bidding Prayer, particularly at the thought of all those dear ones of my own “who rejoice with us, but upon another shore and in a greater light”. And then it was time to turn the sausage and flip on the coffee pot and check on the bacon sizzling away. And just as I was tucking the plum pudding back into its buttery mold for one last steam, the doorbell rang, and our merry old Christmas Eve party had begun…

It was my brother-in-law and his wife, but there was a whole parade of cars behind them: my family, Philip’s family and friends that are such family no ties of blood could make nearer and dearer. And soon the rooms rang with “Hello! Hello!” “Merry Christmas!” “Oooh—don’t you look pretty!” “Christmas Gif’!” and “Where can I put this?” There seemed to be children everywhere—which is fitting as this day is for them above all others at our farm-in-the-city. One of them came up and asked me if there were to be peppermint sticks in oranges this year. I smiled knowingly and replied that they should go and take a look at the coffee table in the den where two crystal bowls boasted the coveted treats—“But you’ll have to wait till after breakfast!” In the twinkling of an eye, as it were, my home was full of laughter and the snap and crackle of open fires, fragrant with cider and the pudding that was steaming away and the traditional sausages…

Philip asked the patriarchs to say the blessing and I thought that was quite fitting and sensitive of him. As I looked around the dining room, filled to capacity with the progeny of these two men, I had to smile to myself at what they would have thought when they first met at college all those years ago if they could have looked into the future and seen such a gorgeous (and enormous—35 of us!) assemblage. And I smiled, at the same time, at the sweet sounds of Ding Dong Merrily in High pouring out of my radio in that quiet moment, all the way from England…

I spent most of the breakfast bustling about, making sure everyone had tea and coffee and juice, catching a five year-old cherub who threatened to topple out of her chair at the childrens’ table, lingering to laugh at an old and loved story at the adults’ table, and sitting down in my place at the ‘kids’ table’ just about the time I needed to pop back up again and take out the pudding. But I love it, of course. Every minute of it. And when brunch had been dispensed with and the pudding slipped miraculously from its antique mold, we warmed some brandy in a skillet and Philip called all the children into the kitchen to see the great event—after igniting it I poured the blue elven flame over the pudding on its silver holly trimmed tray amid gasps and exclamations—it was quite lovely!—and Philip bore it in triumph into the dining room to a chorus of delighted voices and a spontaneous burst of applause.

Then all of the children—from the smallest to the tallest—came asking for their oranges and peppermint sticks, and to look around at all those beautiful girls in their smocked dresses and handsome little men looking like pint-sized versions of their Daddys in sweater vests, intent upon a pleasure so simple as sucking the juice of an orange through a soft peppermint ‘straw’ made.

After all the excitement of the pudding and the crackers had died down and the jokes had been told and re-told and the charms passed off to admiring children who thought they were treasures indeed, I settled down in the hall with the ladies for a much-appreciated cup of coffee and a good chat while the men and children went out in the yard to play and to say ‘Hello,’ and ‘Merry Christmas!’ to the chickens. When I chanced to step out on the back porch it was a sight to warm the heart for days to come—a lovely day, as the dawn had promised, lightly overcast with clouds scudding across a wintry sky, chill enough for all the lovely velvet Christmas coats to bloom out in all the colors of jewels, and a pale December sunlight falling with a mellowing touch upon all the bright heads. They were all running around, screaming and laughing, chasing and being chased by the adults, paper crowns askew and baby dolls dangling by the arms…such a beautiful tableau of innocent happiness…I loved it. I just stood there, leaning over the rail and taking it all in. And then Philip got the idea that each one of them should have a chance at ringing the old school bell at the back of the house in honor of Christmas and a great pealing ensued which drove me from my post and down into the yard with them all to take part in the fun.

I gave everyone their favors when it was time to go—paper cones filled with fudge and caramels—and the children were so excited. How refreshing it is in this age of materialism to see children thrilled over peppermint sticks in oranges and bits of paper and tinsel crammed with homemade candy!

As the dusk fell upon our darling day and a purple and golden twilight descended, the light of the fire and the Christmas tree and my little Advent wreath in the window shone out with an ever-increasing warmth and I longed, oh so fiercely!, to make time stop for even a moment or two. We had done our favorite day homage, old traditions had been honored and new ones introduced for consideration. Children had been exalted to the guests of honor in tribute to our blessed Child-Savior and adults had celebrated the ties that He had forged. The whole day had been a Christmas gift from the Host of the feast. An invitation to the children and the childlike to enter into His joy.

A gilt-edged shadow of the happiness that lies in store for us all when faith is made sight.

Thanks be to God.

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

Now Christmas isn’t so predictable.

Sometimes I’m with my family; sometimes I’m thousands of miles away.

Sometimes I have a Christmas tree. Sometimes I don’t.

And sometimes I have a carol-singing joyride to Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem, to get one – only to learn that my housemates are allergic, and gleefully give it away to friends who have none.

Sometimes it’s shirtsleeves weather, cypress wreaths, and stone houses. Sometimes it’s the real fragrance of evergreen, and a real white Christmas…

(And once, there was snow in Jerusalem, just two days after Christmas).

Sometimes it’s long on adventure and short on stuff. Like the year my stocking arrived in a tiny box at the post office – and I spent Christmas eve and Christmas morning exploring Bethlehem on foot.

Or the year we got all ten of our selves to Israel for Christmas – and not much else.

Christmas Eve was carols in Jerusalem; Christmas breakfast was pancakes, pomegranates, Swedish tea, Mexican hot chocolate – and the Nativity story.

Sometimes strings of Christmas lights help me feel Advent-wonder. Sometimes it’s Hanukkah candles.

Either way, I know it’s due to the mighty acts of God that there was a Jewish nation into which my Savior could be born.  I know it’s thanks to my stubborn, greedy grasp on my own way that He had to lay aside His glory and became the smallest, most invisible form of human life…

Be born ignominiously. Raised in obscurity.  Rejected, killed, and ALIVE.

And I know He did it all for sheer joy.

Based on my Christmases past, I know I can’t count on who I’ll have with me, where I’ll be, what I’ll receive, or how I will feel. But one thing is always certain: He is.

He is.

He is Emmanuel.

And God-with-us. Is with me.

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

But then the morning came when I flipped on the outdoor light in preparation for Scott’s early morning departure for work to find that rain had faded into white, and even yet, out of the darkness snowflakes were falling and making my world a wonderful, fluffy white. (At least for a little while!) It was that day, too, that I realized that Thanksgiving was almost here again. Somehow. Surely it hadn’t been over a year since my man asked me to be his bride? Blink. Wait, how could it be just a year ago. Longer, surely much longer ago than that.

One thing was sure, though. It was snowing at last, and as I stood there, admiring the way that God turns barrenness into beauty, a parade of memories began to march, or perhaps tumble through my mind, bringing alive the “old days” now past in of some of the Christmas Classics that cannot leave off from echoing through my memory’s hall.

It really does sometimes seem like yesterday, especially as these first snows of winter fall, that I danced  around the house with my brother and sister  while we sang a bit  of “Let it Snow” in anticipation of those first Alaskan snowflakes (though I wonder now that we weren’t singing something else- such as “snow, snow go away, come again some other day”, long as those winters felt sometimes!) and then  fell down on our backs on the lawn, laughing, and trying to catch the first snowflakes on our tongues.

Though snow usually fell long before Christmas, and often long before Thanksgiving, there was something about the snows before Christmas that seemed extra special then, and now even more so.  Those fires in the fireplace in my childhood home (fueled by wood that we’d spent the few months of summer gathering from our own acreage) are now replaced with fires in the pellet stove in my new living room, and yet the warm, glowing light remind me of those cozy home fires and I hear my brother’s voice all over again, singing as only he could do, about those chestnuts we never did get to roast on our open fires (and that I still dream of doing…some Christmas season, if and when I can find some chestnuts).  Jack-frost nipping at our noses and anywhere else he could nip (ever have your eyelashes freeze shut? I have!), and dressing like Eskimos (I wore a kuspuk quite often as a child) were reality for us, but somehow it was those chestnuts we always thought about.

I  can still  hear that particular crunch of dry, powder snow  as it is trampled underfoot, and feel the icy wind  biting at my nose and cheeks again as we walked from house to house around the neighborhood- and farther- keeping that beautiful tradition of caroling alive and sharing a little of our Christmastime joy with strangers.  I hear the Drummer Boy (Johnny Manthis, once again accompanied by my brother), and remember understanding for the first time what it meant to “give my best to Him” who was born to die so that I could live.

I still feel the chills down my spine and the threat of tears every time I hear it that I felt that first time I stood and heard the Hallelujah Chorus live in an old church in Anchorage as a 9 year old. Only now I  sing along, and imagine that in Heaven, the Angels must be singing too.

But while I think of the beautiful blessings remembered last Thanksgiving to this one just past, and while I write my Christmas greetings to the people near to my heart though scattered around this old earth,  and glance out my little window at the picture of my world- a world just now turning white, unlike the world of my childhood- it is Bing Crosby whose voice floats into my mind, and memory after memory of happy, carefree childhood white winter days come with it, when the snow was already quite deep, and  the only kind of Christmas I ever knew were  always white. I’m dreaming of a White Christmas.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the treetops glisten,
and children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow

Happy, beautiful, white Christmases. Days  filled with family, love, rejoicing and thankfulness for the gift of God’s Son to make our hearts “whiter than snow”. These were days to give, to share, to sing and be still and know Him. To hear the snowflakes fall, and the winter birds sing. Tree tops always glistened and once or twice, we did hear the sleigh bells ringing through the cold air and the snow crunching under horse foot, fulfilling a childish desire to really go sleigh riding. These are some of my heart’s happiest memories.

Thanksgiving is past now, and the air is even more chilly than before, and there is snow on the ground- and it seems to be here to stay. Yet, still through my mind the memories, and the songs echo keeping those memories of Christmases of the past fresh, and the happiness, that real joy that comes from sharing, and the reason why I always dream of “white Christmases” is alive just as it was when I was a child.

Life changes just as the seasons come and go. This year my siblings are far away, my family scattered like autumn leaves, married, expecting little ones, unable to make the trips to all be back together again.  It won’t be just like the Christmas times I’ve known before. It’ll be my first…away from home, but at home, where I’d rather be than anywhere else, at the side of the man I love more than anyone else in this world. I’m looking forward to creating our own memories to tuck into my treasure chest in Memory’s hall.

But I’m still dreaming of a White Christmas- not just a snowy, white Christmas,  but the kind of happiness that White Christmases always have been to my heart… a Christmas as filled with love and joy and thankfulness, with sharing, with quiet moments to soak in the reality of what the world somehow has commercialized into a mere shadow of what it ought to be… and somehow I think this Christmas will be more beautiful than any I’ve ever known.

I’m looking forward to a cozy fire, to the Christmas Greetings from friends and family that make every day cheery when I see them in a little (but growing!) line on our window sill, a happy home filled with the music of the season, a few special foods, and  lots of quiet moments truly seeking to grasp the ultimate gift ever given- our Savior, and to be still in our hearts and know Him.

It isn’t the gifts, it isn’t the food, it isn’t the place or the people, or the snow that make my Christmas White- though they make it happy indeed, and the memories even more beautiful and special- it is the simple joys and the happiness that comes from inside that will always be my white Christmas, no matter where I am, and even if I am all alone.

Whether you “celebrate” Christmas, Hanukkah or neither, from our home to yours…

May your days be merry and bright
And may all your Christmases be white.

God bless each of you this season, exceedingly, abundantly above all that you ask, think or even imagine. Happy White Christmas, this year and always.

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

I believe if I were charged with having a goal, it would be to live without fretting—to live more fully in the moment, not always huffing about as I’ve done in recent years…to live humbly—and appreciatively—with whatever God furnishes.

Jan Karon, Light from Heaven

I just love Father Tim.  He always speaks to the very essence of the matter, and with such humble sincerity that you can’t help but cherish the wisdom of his words.  And these in particular I’ve taken very much to heart this Christmas season.

This same sweet friend joins me and another in a yearly triumvirate of holiday accountability and prayer.  We three share a passionate sentiment for Christmastide and all its tender joys; we view the month of December as sacred in its entirety, and at least two of us weep when the Christmas tree finally comes down—after New Year’s, of course!  But as women of like passions we face like temptations.  As lovers of beauty and order we battle with the mockery of perfectionism.  Energetic and excited over plans we’ve been dreaming of for eleven months we are always taken aback by the onslaught of holiday possibilities.   Treasuring the birth of our Savior as the most unfathomable miracle of all time, we still confront the barrage of distraction and derailment our culture is only too willing to supply.

But the knowledge that I’m not alone—in my sweetest joys as well as in my struggles—has given me courage to keep true to the desires I have for a peaceful, Christ-centered Christmas.  The advice and encouragement passed round the table at our little pow-wow back before Thanksgiving is still refreshing my spirit with gentle nudges throughout my days.  I see their raised eyebrows in my imagination when I’m tempted to stress over non-essesentials.  Their emails and phone calls have been the Lord’s own whispers of love to me.  And the prayers of such godly women ‘avail much’.

But their greatest gift has been the silent example of their lives, which has bidden me to sit quietly at the feet of Christ each morning and savor the wonder of His coming to dwell among us.  And that single thing has already made this Christmas the best I have ever known.  Perhaps it is simply the knowing of Him that comes of such stillness, but I seem to see His beauty everywhere I look this season: in the first light of a winter’s dawn sparkling and glittering over a frost-encrusted world, the bright rays slanting through the cedars and the golden mist stealing up from the pasture; in the shining crowns of holly perched on the brows of all my pictures and the gorgeous shining tree all spangled with tinsel and fragrant with gingerbread; in the miracle of friends and relations and the miracles He’s wrought in our family just this year…

Tuesday was a day of Bustle.  It was a busy day in the midst of a busy week, and I realized at its close that the only thing that kept it from careening along in a frenzy of huffing was the slim cord of a prayer taught me by an older friend long ago: Gather my thoughts and order my steps.  From a round of crucial errands He did order my steps, providentially, by an insatiable craving for a peppermint mocha from Starbucks.  Who should I run into in the parking lot but my mother—actually I almost ran over her; she went back in with me and we sat chatting over pleasant holiday things for nearly an hour, pretending that we both didn’t have miles to go before our tea at home that afternoon.  It was a pause that refreshed, and that sent me on my way with a smile on my face.  I dashed all over town: my favorite tea shop for some Winter Garden tea for a special visit next week; an enquiry after Christmas crackers; one last gift for two dear little friends ages three and-a-half and five and-a-half.  And last of all, my wonderful farmer’s market, bright with beautiful seasonal produce—crates of clementines, fragrant pineapples, pomegranates, kumquats, lady apples, forfelle pears—and fairly glittering with imported holiday goods.  I wandered dazzled as a child among the colorful aisles, savoring the excitment of such once-a-year treats as Wensleydale cheese with dried cranberries and real English bangers and blood oranges.

Not a Christmas goes by that I don’t read or quote the third stanza of It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, which never ceases to pierce me with its poignant entreaty:

Oh ye beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low
Who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow:
Look now! For glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing!
Oh rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing!

What a timely word for a tired age!

All too soon this precious holiday will join the ranks of Christmases past whose memories lie too deep for words.  And my sweet friends and I will sit together over our ‘Twelfth Night Tea’ and sigh over how sweet it was, and discuss what we’ll do differently next year, and share what precious things the Lord taught us as we celebrated His holy Advent.  And we’ll do our very best to keep all these things and ponder them in our hearts.

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

I had the privilege of hearing his liturgy sung in a beautiful cathedral as a special birthday treat this year. (I have loved cathedrals ever since my mission trip to Romania in 2003). And I’ve thought about him several times, as the days here continue to get colder and darker. How blessed I am to have a warm home and relatively easy life; yet how wont I am to complain when my feet are a bit cold in the car, or there is ice covering the parking lot at the grocery store. I am humbled when I remember that many Christians have endured great hardships and horrible conditions to bring Christ to a dying people.

I believe that God has given us this great cloud of witnesses so that no matter what challenges we face in our daily lives, we can know that we are not alone. Someone at some time has faced similar things and more, whether in Alaska, or Jerusalem, Romania, or Ecuador. We remember them and rejoice in the faithfulness of God. He has a long history of doing great things with small people.

Merry Christmas from Alaska!

- by Elizabeth Jackson
photo by Sarah Plett

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

Someone has placed these little plaques at numerous churches all over Israel. This one reads:

Jesus made himself of no reputation,
and took upon himself the form of a servant,
and was made in the likeness of men.
Philippians 2:7

Considering his person and his gifts, no one
on earth has followed such a way of humiliation,
of hiddenness and misunderstanding as Jesus,
the Son of God, did as a boy and carpenter in Nazareth.
Whoever loves Jesus will choose such a way.

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

I think the Hobbits were on to something. Tea and scones, porridge and eggs, toast and sausages are well worth considering a second time, especially on a long and cold walk near Mordor when the first breakfast consists of rabbit.

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

We’ve got the whole thing down to a science now, but the first couple of years we had a few troubles. For example, we didn’t have a recipe for the traditional saffron rolls for breakfast. “Well, kringla is Swedish,” I told my sisters. “We’ll just make that.” Another problem was the initial reactions of the sleepy family when awakened by white-robed apparitions, with candles that cast wavering shadows on the wall. Some of the younger boys, wide-eyed, told Mom about the angels that came into their rooms, while the adults’ thoughts ran on themes of “The Ghost of Christmas Past.”

Since our family consistently forgot the date of the holiday, it was easy to keep the whole thing under wraps and let it be a surprise. Most years, they didn’t know anything was afoot until we woke them early in the morning.

Most years. Until the year we girls forgot about St. Lucia’s Day. We remembered at 8:30 pm on December 12.

“Oh, girls!” my sister Katie gasped. “Tomorrow is St. Lucia’s Day, and we haven’t done a thing to get ready!”

Betsy was undaunted. “Oh, we can still do it. We’re really fast. Let’s go make the kringla.”

Our younger brothers were already in bed, so we didn’t have to worry about them seeing us baking. We closed the kitchen door and kept an eagle eye out for anyone prowling around. Betsy, who has a reputation for being very fast indeed in the kitchen, started the kringla, while Katie and I made other preparations. What we didn’t know was that Betsy simply put water and butter in a pan, turned the stove eye on high, and scurried off to do something else.

It was only a matter of minutes before we heard the sizzle. Katie and I turned around just as Betsy returned to the kitchen, and we all rushed to the stove, where the butter and water were busily boiling over, sending plumes of blue smoke into the air. Betsy jerked the pan off the stove and put it in the sink, while Katie and I grabbed dishtowels and waved them at the smoke, which by now was curling along the ceiling and heading toward the door.

“We’ve got to stop this smoke,” Katie giggled, although we were nearly frantic. Right outside the kitchen door was a smoke alarm. And right down the basement stairs from the smoke alarm was half of our rural volunteer fire department, having a Bible study under Dad’s direction. We were sure that the smoke alarm would go off and they’d all come rushing up to see what in the world was going on. They are all our neighbors – we’d never live it down!

Thankfully we were able to direct the smoke away from the door and avoid that embarrassing situation. With the kringla safely baking in the oven, we turned our attention to other details, such as our costumes. Tradition dictates that the girls wear wreaths of evergreen branches and candles in their hair (although with a firefighter dad, we opted to carry our candles in our hands!). Of course, it was too cold, dark, and scary to go outside for branches by now. Always resourceful, we cut “just a few” off the back of the Christmas tree, hoping they wouldn’t be missed.

We headed back to the kitchen with our booty, closing the door quickly to keep the delicious smell of baking kringla from escaping. That smell would probably bring the firefighters upstairs about as effectively as smoke would! Besides, wasn’t the meeting about over by now?

Yes, it was. Suddenly the kitchen door was pushed open by Dad, followed by half a dozen men. With shrieks of, “Don’t come in here!” we girls pushed it shut again.

“Hey, what’s going on? Can’t I come into my own kitchen?” Dad queried. “We’re just bringing our cups and plates in for you. What’s the matter?”

We were too hysterical to be coherent, but managed to tell him that one of the firefighters could bring in the dishes – our good friend Tim, who has a couple of crazy sisters himself. He just shook his head in bewilderment as we tried to explain what had happened. “Okay,” he finally said, shrugging.

Amazingly enough, the breakfast turned out beautifully. The kringla was perfect, the table was lovely, and the evergreen wreaths, while rather prickly, were silent as to their origins. It was once again a complete surprise to the rest of the family.

It was the last time to be a surprise.

- by Jeannie Castleberry
Photo by Sarah Plett

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

Christmas hath made an end,
Well-a-day! well-a-day!
Which was my dearest friend,
More is the pity!
For with an heavy heart
Must I from thee depart,
To follow plow and cart
All the year after!

It grieves me to the heart,
Well-a-day! well-a-day!
From my friend to depart,
More is the pity!
Christmas, I fear ’tis thee
That thus forsaketh me:
Yet for one hour, I see,
Will I be merry.

There certainly was great merry-making around the fire that night. Sparklers for the children and bottle rockets and Roman candles for the boys and men. Old English games like ‘Christmas Candle’ and ‘Snapdragon’ that Philip and I dug out of an old book. Mirth and good cheer as Christmas trees were added to the blaze sending the flames a good forty feet into the air. After seconds and thirds of dinner had been dispensed with, my friend Rachel and I gathered all of the little girls for a special procession of the wassail and the Twelfth Night cake—which had been duly prepared with the traditional bean, pea and clove planted somewhere in its spiced depths, the discovery of which would determine the king, queen and knave, respectively, for the evening. We rehearsed our wassailing song quietly in the shadows of the great walnut tree and lit green sparklers on the cake before making our solemn way across the backyard down to the fire.

Here we come a-wassailing among the leaves so green!
And here we come a-wand’ring so fair to be seen!
Love and joy come to you and to you your wassail too,
And God bless you and send you a happy new year!
And God send you a happy new year!

The cake was presented amid a spontaneous burst of applause and was duly sliced and distributed by the girls to the eager guests, each desirous of their status in the hierarchy of the night. My mother’s dear friend, Wendy, was the knave, I plucked the pea from my piece of cake with an air of queenly triumph, and the king obviously swallowed his bean unnoticed and will henceforth go uncrowned. (We’ll just say it was Philip…)

There were Twelfth Night carols and Epiphany songs after that, and the inevitable Twelve Days of Christmas. And we closed on the rousing note of The Gloucestershire Wassail, each time I thought we were done another guest calling out another verse:

“The butler verse!”
“The maid verse!”
“Verse one, again!”

When all but a set’s worth (and those acquainted with Scottish or English country dancing will know what that implies) had taken their leave with many a hopeful word for ‘next year’, Philip and his brother polished off the bottle rockets while my sister-in-law and I looked on from a safe distance and savored the fun we’d already had and the enchantments abroad in earth and sky. A clear golden moon had risen early upon our festivities, out of a vaporous fog that cloaked the trees and made its light a mysterious thing. There was the closeness of the dew and the bewitchery of woodsmoke in the air. We looked up through the moonlit trees overhead and commented on how the drops that still clung to their bare limbs looked like stars all tangled in the branches. But only fitting on a night so fraught with faeirie…

Coffee and wassail and cookies in the house after that for the hearty and hale that had stayed for the dancing. Postie’s Jig and Corn Rigs and Frost and Snow were executed with commendable good spirit, despite—or, perhaps, because of—the fact that for the first time ever we had more gentlemen than ladies and a couple of un-named guys had to cross the set and dance as girls! The candles wavered in their sconces as we romped by and the crepe paper fluttered overhead. And when we were all too tired to dance anymore, we flopped on the floor, the stairs, the remaining seats, and smiled sleepily at one another.

But despite my weariness, when we said goodbye and closed the door for the last time, I turned to Philip with a look of elation. My Christmas was complete; my holiday wrapped up like a present from God in one last lovely memory. We had said a worthy farewell to the dearest season of the year, toasted its memory with our laughter and songs.

And it’s only forty-six more weeks till I can start decking my halls again!

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so blue about the holidays drawing to close as I was this year. Every moment was so precious that I literally watched them pass with a sigh and even a few tears. And when Philip went back to work on Tuesday and I was confronted with a quiet house and a mountain of laundry and a good-sized hill of dead greenery, it was all I could not to crawl back in bed and pull the covers over my head. It’s the price I pay for all my Christmas sentiment, I am well aware, and worth all its sweet pain. But something had to be done. And to my melancholy mind there appeared but one option: we had to throw a party.

So we invited our friends to a Twelfth Night Revel. It’s something we’ve wanted to do for ages, but with it falling on Friday this year—coupled with the desperate need I had for festivity—it seemed the very moment in time for such a frolic. So Philip got the bonfire ready and put out the chairs in a wide arc around it, and I decorated our big copper lanterns with wired-on greenery and doled out food assignments with each RSVP. I set up tables for the pots of chili and the platters of cornbread and the bowls of salad that were coming and spread them with branches of pine and big, ferny sprigs of cedar, interjected by tall glass hurricanes with white tapers. The front hall was cleared for dancing, and the chandelier was woven with a wreath of ivy and strung with bright crepe paper, red and green, that extended in winding ribbons to the four corners of the room. I made an enormous pan of Mexican cornbread and a pot of my favorite ‘White Christmas chili’ and took the remaining cookies I had made out of the freezer.

And all through the preparations the day of the party I listened to the thunder rumble and watched the rain falling outside—a veritable monsoon—and fielded phone calls from anxious friends.

“Are we still on for tonight?”
“Who would have thought we’d have such weather in January?”
“Well, we could always eat in the house…”

I laughed and soothed and projected the weather as best I could. But not, I confess, with an untroubled heart. It just seemed like our whole beautiful holiday would end on a flat note if our bonfire was rained out. Not to mention the fact that I had no back-up plan for seating the hungry hordes that would soon be descending upon us. And so I prayed roughly a dozen or so of those desperate little pleading requests: “Oh, Lord! I know that there are a million-and-one other things tremendously more important in the scheme of the world than whether it rains on our party or not—but oh, please, please let it clear up!”

There was nothing else to be done but continue with the preparations and hope for the best. The forecast was quite dour; the heavy-laden clouds that kept rolling in from the west were too disheartening to look at. It poured on Philip all the way home from the office. But at five-thirty a miracle occurred. I don’t hesitate in the least to call it a miracle, albeit a small one, for in it I heard the Lord say ‘I love you’ just as clearly as if it had been an audible voice. (And is it not those little personal miracles that show us—perhaps best of all—His great and lovely tenderness?) A glint of gold appeared in the west, piercing the leaden mantle with arrows of light. In a matter of moments the whole sky was suffused with a glory of saffron and apricot, crowning the tops of the trees in splendor and brimming the pasture below with a light-filled mist. I dropped my dishcloth and stood at the window, perfectly transfixed. My heart was filled with praise, for not only had God allowed the weather to clear up, He had done it in the most beautiful way imaginable. Every drop on every branch was a living gem, sparkling and flashing as if for joy. Birdsongs sweetened the already vernal air and Philip and I wandered about in the yard, laughing at how gorgeous it suddenly all was. I thought of the words to a song we’ve sung much this Christmas, All hayle to the days:

December is seene appareled in greene, and January fresh as May
Comes dancing along with a cup and a song to drive the cold winter away.

As twilight fell the world only became more glamorous: the mist rolled up along the terraces in the pasture and crept over the lawn, and stars winked out in the velvet overhead.

“I feel like we’re in Merry Olde England!” I cried to Philip.
“Or Ireland!” he supplied.
“Or Scotland!” I exulted.

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

Dear Family and Friends,

Christmas lights twinkle around our big picture window, framing the snow falling gently down outside. We decorated our little live Christmas tree last night. When spring comes, we’ll have a little blue spruce to plant in our yard, around our little pink house. Except, hopefully we’ll have the siding on by spring, so our house won’t be Tyvek-pink anymore.

It’s been so fun to walk down to the mailbox each day, and find Christmas cards addressed to “Mr. and Mrs.” It’s so good to hear from each of you who have been such a part of our lives. Having just finished our wedding thank you notes, I don’t think Christmas cards will make it in the mail this year. So please let this email greeting suffice to say Merry Christmas from the little pink house to each and every one of you!

2006 was a year of many milestones for us. Getting engaged. Building a house. Our wedding. An explosion and helicopter ride to the hospital. And our first Christmas together. How do you summarize such in mere words?

Merritt and I rang in the New Year together at my grandparents’ ranch. And after a Christmas of mailing packages to each other and talking on the phone, we hoped and prayed that somehow, we could spend our next Christmas together.

On Valentine’s Day, Merritt knelt down on one knee, slipped a beautiful diamond ring on my finger, and asked me to marry him. In my surprise and joy I forgot to say yes, but he concluded that my answer was in the affirmative. We set the date, and while I returned home to buy a dress and plan a wedding, Merritt built us a little home on the very spot he had proposed.

Our wedding day was a dream come true. We enjoyed every minute of May 27. Walking down the aisle to join hands for life with my love, my best friend. After the pastor shared the story of how we’d met ten years before, we all sang “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” And every word rang true.

We honeymooned in Yellowstone National Park (where we met) and the Grand Tetons, and returned home to finish our little home. What fun to learn from my husband how to wire lights, lay floor, and hang cabinets! In two weeks we were settled in, and while Merritt cut hay I finished unpacking. We were happy as could be in our little pink house.

Then, God showed His faithfulness in a whole new way. Merritt was welding on a fuel tank here on the farm when the tank exploded, burning his arm and shattering the bones in his lower left leg. After 55 days of marriage, you don’t expect to be checking your husband’s IV and adjusting his oxygen tube while waiting for him to go into surgery. But God was so good to us. The accident could have so easily left me a widow. Instead, I got to be a nurse to my favorite patient! After two surgeries, Merritt felt a lot better with two rods and three screws in his leg. 10 weeks on crutches, a few more with a cane, and lots of physical therapy later, Merritt has only some nasty scars and a limp to show for it. But we learned so much about how the Lord cares for His own. Provision for the bills through the generosity of many friends and other believers in Samaritan Ministries, neighbors who stepped in and baled the hay when Merritt couldn’t, and such complete healing for Merritt’s leg that as of now he doesn’t even need a bone graft. We can only say great is Thy faithfulness!

Since July, our year has gone at a slower pace. As soon as he was able to be up, Merritt and I spent our days working in the family store, Front Porch Antiques and Produce. Doctor’s visits and physical therapy appointments filled our days off, Sundays were spent with our new church family. But when the third cutting of hay was ready, Merritt was back in the tractor, baling the alfalfa. Then in November, Merritt and I joined my dad on a week-long elk hunting trip. Camping out in the rain, wind, and snow made for a lot of fun memories—and lots of good therapy for Merritt’s leg.

We celebrated Christmas early with my family in Oregon, getting to see my brother home from college, my sister’s harp concert, and my youngest brother all grown up. It was fun to see so many dear faces again—grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and my church family.

But it was good to come back home, to our little pink house, for our very first Christmas together.

Yes, 2006 has been a year of many blessings. Special times with family and friends. Holding my husband’s hand as he came out of surgery. Learning how to be a farmer’s wife. Seven perfect months of marriage to my best friend.

But the greatest Gift of all is the One we now celebrate.

Wishing each and every one of you a new year filled with testimonies of His faithfulness…

Mr. and Mrs. Merritt and Gretchen Acheson

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

I have to admit that I don’t often remember Jesus’ sufferings. I’m too taken up with mine. Trivial as they may seem, it’s easier for me to remember the time a friend betrayed me, a time my feelings were hurt, a time I felt that no one loved or understood me. I can remember pain, sorrow, and disappointment in great detail, even things that happened long ago. But the pain my Savior bore for me? Too often, I don’t take it seriously.

Why is it important to remember? At His final meal Jesus said, “This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19) Remembering His sacrifice ensures that we won’t take it for granted. It also humbles us, as we realize how much He gave for us, who did not yet love Him. (Romans 5:8: “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”)

Our sufferings are painful, too. I’m not denying that. But as we think of our own pain, it should remind us of Jesus’ sufferings. Because the reason He went through that was to deliver us from sin and suffering.

“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:3-6)

Christmas is a time of remembering. While we remember Jesus’ birth, let’s not forget the real reason He came.

- by Jeannie Castleberry

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

Last year was our first Christmas as husband and wife. It was special, but also hard to be so far away from family. This year we have little William Allan, our precious two-month-old baby, and it feels right to be spending Christmas together, just our own little family. Our first Christmas tree shines brightly in the corner, and William’s first ornament—a polar bear—dangles from the branches with the other decorations.

It has been a year of wonderful memories and growth in our Lord. Learning to accept and embrace this place where we live; to be a family together; to make important decisions together. It is the year we found our church, the year our son came to us, the year we experienced loss together and came out stronger for it…

May God bless you all this Christmas as you remember all the things He has done for you this past year. And especially as you remember what He did for you 2000 years ago in a little town called Bethlehem.

Blessed Christmas wishes from Alaska,

Elizabeth Jackson

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

It’s December, and I’m loving every minute of it. We got all our Christmas shopping done before the first of December. The gifts are all wrapped and at my in-law’s, awaiting a Christmas tree to sit under. Next, we’re going to make Christmas cookies.

It’s been fun to have more time for reading, during the slower hours at the store. St. Elmo, Mother, and The Rackety Packety House have already made the trip back and forth in my basket this month. We found another bookshelf, so now instead of being stacked in cardboard boxes, two rows deep, all our books have their own place on a shelf. We even got them organized by author and subject. I love to just sit and read the titles, like I did when I was a little girl. At “rest time” I would lay on the couch with my face towards Mom’s bookshelves, and memorize the titles and authors. Now they are my own books, and I am allowed to read all of them!

The fire is crackling, and my husband’s exercise bike is whirring, which means I better start on the pancakes I promised him for breakfast. But before I go, may I ask again that you pray for his doctor appointment on Monday, Dec. 11? He’s finished physical therapy, and the leg muscles are doing so much better. But that bone had a lot of growing to do, last time we saw an x-ray. Thank you for praying.

Now find a cup of hot chocolate, turn on some Christmas music, and put up some Christmas lights…and just take a few minutes to enjoy the beauty of the season. Merry Christmastime!

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

Here’s what April had to say:

This was exactly how I felt at the beginning of the movie. Righteous indignation welled up in me…”Mary wasn’t like that! God chose her to be the mother of Jesus because He knew she was and would be the most godly woman to ever live and was the only woman in all of human history worthy enough to be the mother of the Savior! She would never have engaged in a wrestling match, no matter how playful! She would never sulk or run out of the house when forced to marry Joseph!”

But is that true?

The Bible doesn’t say that she did those things (and therefore I agree that it was “creative license” that inserted those events), nor does it say she didn’t do those things. Actually, it says very little about Mary’s character. If you think about it, we’re actually told more about Joseph’s character than Mary’s – that he was a righteous man (Matthew 1:19). All we are told about Mary is that she found favor with God (Luke 1:30), but we aren’t told why. Was it because she was more godly than anyone who had ever or would ever live? Maybe, but the Scripture doesn’t say that. Could it have been that God, in His sovereignty, rather chose to use a flawed young girl who would be submissive to His plans?

Luke shows us Mary was godly and knew the scriptures (Luke 1:46-55), but it doesn’t say that she was perfect, always decorous, always respectful to authority. I think we get that picture into our minds, especially at this time of year. In our mind’s eye, Mary is a figure dressed in blue silk with hands folded and a halo around her head.

In reality, Mary, and indeed all the people God used who are recorded in the Bible, were flesh and blood humans just like us. God didn’t choose to only use perfect people, because there have never been and never will be perfect people. He uses people who, through no other virtue of their own, are willing to be used for His glory. That is a lesson The Nativity Story drove hard home to me. I have no excuse to look at the people of the Bible and sigh because I will never be as good as they were – good enough to be used by God. God chooses imperfect people like Mary, and yes, even like me, to accomplish His purposes in this world, and I am so thankful for that.

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.