Our Christmas Card

Merry Christmas!

From all the members of our family, ages 1 to 97 years old, we wish you a blessed celebration of the birth of our Savior.  May the Lord's peace and love be with you this season and always. 

We dressed up to act out the Christmas story, with the help of Granny and Grandpa's mules and the neighbors' sheep.  Click below to hear and see the story:

A Recitation of the Christmas Story

Green

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
    and that we may walk in his paths.
 He shall judge between the nations,
    and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
    and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
    neither shall they learn war anymore.

Isaiah 2:3-4  ESV 

Green uniform shirts are in short supply here at home today. Last uniform order I mostly ordered the dark brown hide-the-dirt-and-don't-show-stains shirts in three sizes for this school year. But the principal says wear green, and green it will be. 

Mary is wearing John's button-down dress shirt under her brown. Anna tried on one of my long-sleeved t-shirts but said, true to style, "No way. It feels weird." John dug a green uniform shirt out of the laundry pile in the basement, that is neither clean nor close to his size. He is swimming in it. But it is green. 

 The kids received spray hair paint from their baby brother in the family gift exchange yesterday, so we painted some green stripes in their hair. I hope the green hair is not viewed as irreverent. 

Our intention is the very opposite---green is life, green is growth, green is sustainable. We are in school spirit. We stand in solidarity with the families across this nation who trust each other as the proverbial village to care for and raise our children. We have gotten very far from the land. 

The prophet Isaiah was right when he suggested the need for more ploughshares and more time spent on the mountain of the Lord.

 They will live again in freedom

In the garden of the Lord.

They will walk behind the ploughshare,

They will put away the sword.

The chain will be broken

And all men will have their reward.

--from the musical Les Miserables