Goodplans

Keeping first things first...

I've been asking myself why things that are not important always end up trying to shove their way into being done first? Why do we choose what is, (no, what seems) "urgent" over what is important?

I think it's power. Control. Every thing wants the position of first in our lives. Things want to be God. They want control; they want to rule us.

In light of that, I've been purposely avoiding doing things that just don't have to be done, in order to focus on what is important. It's part of keeping Christmas simple and focusing on what is important.

Here are some of the activities we choose to do during the holy days (holidays).

First, we went to Philbrook's Festival of Trees together. Not as big this year, the showing of trees and gingerbread houses still put us in the mood to get the tree up, and the baking started.

Then, we decorated together. The nativity, the snowmen, the tree.

We send Christmas cards, and call those with whom we have failed to stay connected this year.

We cook and bake together all through the month, and we clean up the mess together!

We will go ice skating together, and we'll have several other families join us!

We will get cocoa, our favorite Christmas music, and pile into the mini-van to tour Rhema's lights.

We will celebrate Chanukkah together, lighting candles, reading the Bible, and thinking about what it must have been like when Jesus celebrated in Jerusalem.

We will have guests after church on Sunday, because we've invited those who live alone to celebrate with us.

We give ~ to charity, to strangers, to friends, to each other.

We smile, we laugh, we snuggle and we enjoy each other's attention.

We keep Jesus first in all our activities.

We shop together for family and friends.