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!