Christmas 2012

I figured I should probably do a quick Christmas recap, since we're already well into January.

Derek and I had a wonderful Christmas season. Here are some highlights:

• Making paper snowflakes and decorating the house for Christmas

• A whole weekend devoted to baking Christmas cookies and treats
• Work Christmas parties
• A Christmas party with our church home group, followed by a nerf gun war

• A Christmas party with our LCA kids who are now college kids

• Time spent catching up with old YL girls and getting to hear about all the ways God is moving in their lives
• Exchanging gifts with Derek at home before we left to visit family

• Spending the weekend before Christmas with my family in Columbus
• Frisbee golf in the freezing rain
• Snow throughout the holidays
• Children's Christmas Eve service that lasted 35 minutes
• Christmas Eve and Christmas day meals with my family
• Opening gifts in Columbus - I got a Dyson vacuum cleaner, which may not sound exciting, but when you have 3 long-haired pets, it was for sure a highlight!
• Spending time with Derek's family 
• Watching our nephews open their gifts
• A non-highlight was that we couldn't get the entire family together due to illness :(
• Opening our gifts - I got a new 50 mm/f.18 lens for my camera and lots of other fun gifts!
• Christmas dinner with Derek's family
• Running last minute errands with Derek to prepare him for his trip to London
• Going back up to Columbus to spend the weekend with my family while Derek was in London
• Stopping at Derek's parents on the way up to see Kevin, Kayla and Connor and watch them open their gifts from us, since we didn't get to see them when we celebrated Christmas with the rest of Derek's family
• Relaxing in Columbus with not much on the agenda for 4 days!
• Being reunited with Derek after he was in Europe for a week and seeing all 1200 pictures! One of our goals is to go through and whittle them down to a manageable amount and have a little party with the friends who went with him and their families. I'm also hoping to share some on the blog in the near future :)

So there is a fairly exhaustive list of all that our Christmas season entailed. After a year filled with many ups and downs, lots of joy, but lots of heartache and disappointment as well, I think that this Christmas season I understood better than ever before our need for a Savior, and eagerly anticipated and enjoyed every opportunity to celebrate the fact that God did not leave us in this broken world, but sent His very Son to save us. To take all of the brokenness and heartache and restore us with hope and a promise that one day, all things will be made new. I hope to carry that truth with me into the new year, and rely on it, whatever 2013 may bring.