A little child

a shining star

a stable rude

the door ajar.

yet in that place

so crude, forlorn,

The Hope of all

the world was born.

-Anonymous

More Quotes for Christmas

I read this about entertaining...
"Your home is the canvas; your guests are the paint."
When entertaining, I want to be more focused on my guests than perfection in my home decor, food, and appearance.

Also I read a great reminder for my family and ME so that I have a spirit of thanksgiving and contentment every day and during the holidays...

"REFLECT upon your present blessings, of which every man has many..."
Charles Dickens

Thank you, Father, for our blessings.

Good morning everyone!  Is everybody off and running on this cool and sunny beautiful Saturday morning?  Hope you will take time this week to get your December 1st goals down on paper and on our blog so we can enjoy encouraging each other.  I have found that because I listed in writing what I plan to get done, my brain, which doesn't normally work very efficiently, sends off a little reminder bell when I am out to grab _____ for Christmas. (For example, I was in Reeves Saine buying strawberry cake and saw beaded cross ornaments made by senior citizens in Mississippi, my home state, and I picked them up for Sunday School teacher gifts.)  

Would you please:  1) send me your favorite online resources for gifts, cards, anything that would be helpful to our group.  Tell me a tiny bit about the site, what is great about it.  Either email them to laurienewman@mac.com or post in the comments section.  

2) send favorite scriptures, quotes, poems pertaining to Christmas.  Reading these things is inspiring as well as helpful when planning Christmas cards, scrapebooks, etc..

Finally, I just discovered something wonderful I want to make sure you know about.  Sara Groves, a favorite music artist of many of us, is releasing a Christmas CD.  On it is a lovely song she has written called It's True about the fact that the fantastic fairytale like love story of Christmas is true in the birth of Christ.    I heard her sing this song at Andrew Peterson's Christmas concert last year and have searched for it in CD since then. You may pre order it at saragroves.com or I am sure it will be on itunes when it is released on the 23rd.

"But it's true

kingdoms and crowns

a God who came down to find you

it's true

Angels on high

sing through the night alleluya"

Sara Groves ~ O Holy Night