Our family had a wonderful time celebrating Eli’s first Christmas as a Strange! He loved every minute of it and we loved watching him love every minute of it. Christmas officially kicked off with a service project Emma and I were able to help with alongside the National Honor Society at North Cobb Christian School. Emma and I helped them serve dinner at The Garden, a shelter for homeless women and children in Atlanta. Talk about an eye-opening experience during the Christmas season when most people are talking about what they are giving or getting. Emma and I had a great time helping out and look forward to visiting The Garden again soon to serve those sweet families!
The next stop on our Christmas adventures was Emma’s Christmas piano recital at school. She was so excited to play “Angels We Have Heard on High.” She did a great job and so did all of her friends that played in the recital. After the recital we headed over to Woodstock to have a fun afternoon of Christmasy things with Clint’s cousins. We decorated cookies, ate great food, and had a lot of fun catching up with them. Next on the agenda was Emma’s Christmas program at school with the rest of the Lower School. The kids in her class decorated tshirts so that they all looked like angels…they really are little angels!
The Sunday before Christmas we headed up to Summerville to have Christmas with Clint’s mom and his family in Summerville. We had a wonderful time with everyone and Emma and Eli got some really great gifts. There was a ton of wonderful food and lots of fun catching up with everyone. On Monday we had some friends over for our annual Christmas Eve Eve Eve lunch. Great food…great friends! Monday night we served at Cedarcrest for the first of the Christmas Candlelight services. It was a really gross evening…cold and pouring down rain…but it was so much fun with Emma helping us hand out the candles. We really enjoyed worshipping with our Cedarcrest family before we hit the road for Christmas.
We woke up early Tuesday morning and drove to Memphis. Eli was so happy to see Nora and we were all glad to see Katie, JD, and the twins as well. What a special time to have James, Simon, and Eli all celebrating their first Christmas together! Eli and Nora are only 3 months apart, so they were eager to catch up and play together. On Christmas Eve, we had a really nice dinner with my family and JD’s parents. The food at Katie’s is always wonderful! We woke up Christmas morning and had lots of fun watching the kids open gifts. I had scheduled a time with Kevin and Marina to join us via Skype from Germany while we opened their gifts and it was so fun to see them and to have them “with us” on Christmas morning!
Emma’s favorite gifts this year were: new Bible and journal, iPad, Frozen sleeping bag, Easy Bake Oven, Crayola tracing kit, and a razor scooter
Eli’s favorite gifts this year were: new Bible, basketball goal, lots of sports balls, GA Tech shirt, books, and a dog guitar
Christmas night we had dinner with my mom and opened a few more gifts. The day after Christmas is our traditional Cousin Christmas dinner. After some shopping early that morning, we fixed White Bean Chicken Chili and made a few Christmas treats before the cousins and my aunt came over for a night of gingerbread houses, chips and dip, and lots of conversation.
The Stranges woke up on Saturday morning and drove to Corinth, MS to hang out with the Harbor family. Dyer was my high school youth pastor and their family has always been very special to us. We always try to see them coming or going from Memphis and this year was a blast! We got home late the night of the 27th and stayed home the rest of Christmas break. We hung out with friends, did some major organizing at home, made a few trips to Goodwill, watched more football than ever, rested, and just enjoyed each other…what a treasure! We had Christmas with Clint’s dad on January 3 to wrap up the holiday festivities. Christmas 2014 was a blast for our family and we are so grateful for the gift of being together!
