Our Christmas tree!

We decided to take an adventure today~we thought we would just 'drive' and find a place to buy a Christmas tree. After about a 40 minute search we ended up back next to the girl's school and bought a Christmas tree a few minutes from home!


Actually it was a nice place to buy a tree and we ended up with a small potted Christmas tree this year (saves buying a stand) and we knew it would fit well in our flat.

The trees here are beautiful. England reminds me so much of the Northwest (of America), with beautiful gardens, and in this case, Christmas trees. This is probably one of the very few things that costs less than the States! Below is the area from which we found our Christmas tree:

It was different not wearing snowpants and gloves to buy our tree this year, but we DID come home and have hot chocolate anyway!

Paper chain

Claire, Julia and their friend Abi have begun another paper chain, this time with left-over paper from school (Claire's teacher generously gave it to her) and their plan is to decorate the whole downstairs with the chain. My girls are industrious!

See what God did?

This week has been "Find A Car Week," at the Johnston house. And indeed we have now purchased a 1996 Toyota Previa. Do you remember how we asked for prayer about needing a new vehicle? Here are the specific answers to our prayers: We found it quickly. The van was less money than our insurance check. The process of buying this van hasn't hindered Jim's studies too badly. And the best news? This Toyota is an 8-seater with a large trunk! Now this means we can take two more people with us when we go to church, school, airport etc.

Thank you so much for praying with us about this need; God very graciously granted us "yes" answers to our prayers, and we are very thankful for how specifically He has cared for us with this van. Praise Him!

Andrew and Daddy

"We're the BOYS!!" Andrew often repeats this line when he's near Jim~and he spends much of his time imitating Daddy in even the smallest of ways. He must wear an undershirt to church, like Daddy, he must tuck his shirt in (like Daddy) and he must wear a baseball cap whenever Daddy does too. He walks like his Daddy and laughs like his Daddy, and he LOVES his Daddy. I am glad our little boy has such a great Dad!

Jim commented when he saw this picture, "Someday Andrew will be as big as me and we won't fit on the stairs together!" Please don't grow too fast little boy, we love you just your size now.

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the powers of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six wingèd seraph,
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

Jim printed this off tonight to teach out girls this wonderful, majestic hymn in preparation for Advent. It was a good hymn for bedtime.

Where's Claire?

We have a little problem finding Claire these days~in fact, it is a real serious dilemma in our home. After calling and calling for her, I will find her somewhere secluded reading, and her response? "Were you calling me Mom?" or "Mom, this book is SO good!"

Notice below that Claire will often not even take her coat off before she begins her after school reading~

She has asked for a lamp that clicks onto her bunkbed for Christmas. I said, "Absolutely not, you would read all night then!" Julia and Sarah have informed me that she does that anyway by using the light in the hall for the same purpose. Egads.

We are infinitely glad she loves to read though~any good suggestions for great books/series for a 10-year old?

Christmas is coming!

Claire just began our first Christmas decorating by hanging her paper chain in our living room. Festive, isn't it?

Christmas is coming, but at a much slower pace here in England. For one thing, it isn't cold like Minnesota! For another, I see very few decorations and lights as of yet. My British friends tell me that they will do all that soon, in a few weeks or so~

What makes Christmas special? We are thankful that no matter where we are we can joyfully celebrate Christ's birth and we can do that as a family together. This is such a blessing to me; I know it will be different celebrating Christmas in England, but the core of WHY we celebrate doesn't change at all.

With not having brought any Christmas things (except our advent book), it is interesting to see what we are gravitating towards to make our Christmas feel familiar and "Johnston-like." What are our instinctive traditions?~

1. Music. We had very little Christmas music, (except Handel's Messiah, a must) and Jim just downloaded for me Amy Grant's "Home for Christmas," and Michael W. Smith's 1989 Christmas album and I am typing away to Amy's 'Breathe of Heaven' and thinking, now, Christmas is coming.

2. Smells. I just made a pumpkin custard (which our family inhaled,) and the smell of pumpkin, nutmeg, cinnamon, all-spice etc. filled our house and smelled right. Do you know what I mean? Smelling a fresh Christmas tree will be next! (Jim just added, 'Julekage' which is a Scandinavian Christmas bread, a Johnston family must)

3. Our Advent Book. We were given a very nice advent book published by Crossway that our children (and us) are addicted to. This beautiful book has 25 unique doors to open and inside is found the next piece of the Christmas story. One child opens the door, another reads. I remember one child having a bad dream in June one year and crying in the middle of the night, "We forgot to read the advent book!" It is looked forward to all year, and this year, Sarah is joining in the 'reading' group, which is very special.

4. Presents for each other. All day today and yesterday our girls made and wrapped gifts for our family. What a wonderful mess it was! They had so much fun doing this, and there is nothing quite like seeing a picture colored especially for another sibling wrapped very carefully and placed in the gift corner. Such joy and pride in this makes my mother's heart very full.

5. We are already getting ready for our birthday party for Jesus. Andrew especially is anticipating this big event, since now he is well aware what birthday parties are! He told me Jesus wanted a very little cake, but when I told him we were making a chocolate cake, he screwed up his face in thought and then said, 'No, I think Jesus wants a very big cake!'

This is my immediate list to date, I look forward to seeing what we feel we can't live without this Christmas!