The Christmas Story

Luke 2:1-14:
1And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.

2And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.

3And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

4And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; because he was of the house and lineage of David:

5To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

6And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

7And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

8And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

9And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

10And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

11For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

12And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

13And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

14Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

King of kings

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

The kingdom of this world
Is become the kingdom of our Lord,
And of His Christ, and of His Christ;
And He shall reign for ever and ever,
For ever and ever, forever and ever,

King of kings, and Lord of lords,
King of kings, and Lord of lords,
And Lord of lords,
And He shall reign,
And He shall reign forever and ever,
King of kings, forever and ever,
And Lord of lords,
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

And He shall reign forever and ever,
King of kings! and Lord of lords!
And He shall reign forever and ever,
King of kings! and Lord of lords!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Those of course are the words to Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, taken from Revelation 11:15- "And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever."

Our family went to a church Christmas program this year (not our church) that seemed to have very little emphasis on the whole meaning of Christmas, other than that we should be focusing on Jesus, not just on getting presents. And while that's true, they failed to put any emphasis on the power, mercy, or grace of God in sending His Son as a man to die for us. Nor that He now reigns...reigns forever, and the "kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ".

However, we went last week to a Christmas concert sponsored by the Salvation Army, a local news station, and various other sponsors; a concert that makes no particular claim to being Christian, and is for all intents merely secular. Every year though, near the end of the concert they have a sing-along, and along with secular Christmas songs like "Jingle Bells" and "Deck the Halls", at the very end is the Hallelujah Chorus. So you can stand there surrounded by people who may or may not be Christians, and sing of the truth that our Lord reigns forever. It's wonderful!


John 1:14- And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Merry Christmas!

Finished!

And with time to spare! I finished up the sweater yesterday evening, and didn't even have to knit after supper. It fits too, which is good... it's not quite the way I would like it, but for as fast as I got it done it's pretty good. And it's very, very soft; Colin keeps coming up to me and petting it, and saying "Ooh, soft sweater, soft sweater!" So maybe I'll have to make him a sweater out of the rest of the yarn! :)

And the Google kangaroos got done with their sweater also!

It's gotten bigger...

My sweater is, well, I won't say almost done! I still need to do two, long sleeves, weave in the ends of yarn, wash, and dry it. But the main part is done and I'm hoping it fits properly. I tried it on after I finished that part, but the sleeve holes aren't open (all the stitches are on narrow holders) so I couldn't put my arms anywhere! In other words, not real accurate! :) I've stitched about 2-3 inches of sleeve since I took that picture... one sleeve that is.

Petunia has decided that it's a blanket for her, not a sweater for me! I had to promise her I'd make her a blanket with the leftover yarn. Actually, I was planning on making a whole big throw for my bed.

I will have a bunch of yarn leftover, because I got two big bags of "mill ends" of what I think is Bernat brand "Soft Boucle", except that this stuff feels even softer, and the only problem I've found so far is that one of the skeins of yarn seems to have melted plastic stuck to it. But each bag is a pound, and has about 4-5 lumps of yarn in it, and I got two bags for $10 at A.C. Moore. I got two because I had no idea how much I needed, so I'll have plenty for a blanket for me, that the cat can use as well.

Now I need to get back to knitting, and all my other work that I have to do... because there is other work, and in the long run, a clean bathroom is more important than having a sweater by Sunday... I guess... :)
That is... I'll knit if I can ever get the cats off of it.

Gracie can't wait for Christmas! And she's getting a pretty new black collar with rhinestones on it... grocery store find for a dollar something... inexpensive Christmas bling for the cat. I'll try to get her to model it.

What I have been up to lately

Not blogging obviously! I don't really make New Year's resolutions, but I should start blogging more regularly.

1. I'm trying to finish a math book
2. We mailed cookies and candy stuff to our relatives
3. I've been sick
4. I've been knitting
5. We've been doing other various things related and not, to Christmas.
6. Oh, I finished the tree skirt!
7. And working on Christmas gifts for my friends.

Our church Christmas program was last Sunday night, and I was supposed to be singing in an ensemble, but I woke up Saturday morning with a sore throat. There's a cold going around, at least in North Carolina, and lots of people have gotten it.
You can hear the recording of the service here. Mom and I were both sick, but we felt well enough to go Sunday night and sit in the back. As it turns out we were probably about a quarter of the audience practically. We don't have a very big church, and most of the people were in the program!

Here's the picture of the finished tree skirt:

It's not as perfect as my perfectionism would like, you just can't sew that big of a piece of fabric perfectly unless you have a lot of space and a big sewing machine. But it certainly looks fine overall, it just the little details that bug me!
The present under the tree are ones from relatives. We haven't gotten around to wrapping present yet!

Here's the sweater I'm working on:
That's just the shoulder part mostly. It's this pattern except I'm making it longer, and I'm not going to use any of the fluffy stuff that's on the sleeves. I started this on Sunday, and I'm hoping maybe I'll be able to get it done for Christmas, or actually the 24th, and I'll wear it to church.

Mom and I went to a cross-stitch get-together Saturday before last. It was in Asheboro, which is about and hour away, and I got to drive there and back...fun! The get-together was fun too... :)

And I've been eating these:
They came in a Christmas package from my Aunt and Uncle, and I really want to see if there's some way to make them, because they're delicious! They taste like they have chocolate in them, and they're so creamy! I think they remind me of those Andes little mint chocolate bars, so maybe that's why I think they should have chocolate in them?

December 19th already...

and I still haven't posted about Thanksgiving... um, sorry? And beta blogger won't keep me signed in...argh. It's about enough to make me change to Wordpress. Now let's see if Blogger dumps my blog for saying that! :)

Anyway, Thanksgiving. My cousins came, we had a really, really good time, we took lots of funny pictures, we ate lots of turkey, and there were lots of weird conversations.
And I present: "Things overheard, to make you laugh!" *cheesy grin*

During one conversation, I don't know how this even came up, but my grandpa says, "You know that movie, with... McQuilken... no child left behind?" Someone said "Is that like President Bush's new movie, or something?" It turned out he meant "Home Alone" and the kid's name was Macauly something or other, but that had us laughing, especially my cousin Jim, through Friday.
And after some mention of Monty Python, my grandpa quite seriously says "Well, I think he's dead isn't he?" He's... he's? um...uh... okay....
And overheard by my cousin Jim as they were leaving their hotel Saturday: "That guy's been sittin' up there on that balcony all morning. You 'spose he's watchin' us?" Ah yes, we live in North Carolina!
Anyway, all in all it was a really fun, hilarious visit, we played Apples to Apples, Rebecca and I played guitar, and it was altogether pretty awesome!

So, yeah, that sounds pretty boring all written out, but believe me, you get my relative together, and boring is not what you'll get! :)

Trying to get caught up

Last Saturday our computer harddrive (one word or two?) died...and that means we lost everything since Nov. 17th, the last time Dad ran a backup. So all the pictures I'd downloaded were gone, thankfully I hadn't deleted them from my camera! Any sites I'd bookmarked (that's the Mac equivalent of saving to favorites, for those of you with Windows) were gone, and ones I'd deleted were back, since I'd just decided that I needed to go through my folder and delete a bunch of stuff I didn't need any more! And all the email I received or sent in that time (two weeks) was gone! Luckily I don't think we lost anything too terribly important...at least not that I've discovered yet!
So anyway, most of the time I've had this past week has been spent recovering stuff, re-deleting, etc. And getting fully caught up on school and stuff like that too!

Oh, and I switched to beta-blogger, since it kept popping up ads on the main page pestering me to switch. It's pretty much the same, but it's got some new features and you can move things around in your template, which should be cool! And you can put little labels in (as you can see below) which I may or may not use, I don't like the way they just sit at the end of the post.

Short post for now

I don't have time for a very long post at all right now, but I have a ton of things I've been wanting to blog about, and hopefully I'll get time before I forget all of them!

Here's a couple pictures of the cake I made last night:










Chocolate cake with "Tastes like whipped cream frosting". It doesn't taste like true whipped cream, but it tastes like twinkie, or cream doughnut filling, and that's close enough! I made it with a little less sugar than I did last time, so it didn't taste quite so sickenly sweet. It was really good though.

And I'm working on a tree skirt. We've had both of these fabrics for a while and used them just draped artistically around the bottom of the tree. But keeping fabric draped artistically around a tree when you have two cats (three last year) is very difficult. I think they look on it as a very fun game: "Play tag around the tree, mess up the tree skirt! Oh look! Natalie fixes it!" So I thought I'd just make the fabric into a proper tree skirt. And no, I'm not mixing the two fabrics, don't worry! :) I'm going to make it reversible, with one color on one side, other one on the other side, and some sort of gold trim around the edge. They both have a little bit of gold in them so I think that will work. So, I need to get to work on sewing it, although... I don't have my trim yet...hmm. Well, we're setting up the tree this weekend, and it may or may not have a tree skirt by next week!