MONDAY MORNING BLOG! December 13, 2016
Just a thought ... We are less than two weeks from Christmas Day. Wow! It has come quickly hasn't it? While I write today, dear Kat is viewing a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie. These have been on since before Thanksgiving. For some Christmas is a nightmare while to others it's the greatest of seasons.
Our family has always made this time a great family highlight. Things change though. In 2014, our sons and grandson moved to Colorado from NH. Our homestead in Rumney, NH became vacant for 6 months and a family Christmas seemed to be lost. But then, we moved back into the home in late September and immediately began some of the holiday traditions. Even without the boys, we visited some of family favorite traditional spots around New England. That Christmas 2014 was then past history like all the others with our family as in April 2015, Kat and I moved from NH to Florida. A year ago, our first Christmas in the FL tropics, was weird in the sense that in New Hampshire, even without snow on the ground, we had to run our woodstove to stay warm as the outside temps a near or below the freezing point -- while here in Florida, the outside temps were warmer than our inside temps in the northern tundra! That's right ... last Christmas it was 80 degrees here. Further, wherever you went, the A/C was blasting! This is our new life in Florida. We have somewhat gotten more used to the warm and humidity because when it gets in the 40s and 50s, we feel cold. Yikes! After a long NH winter 40s and 50s felt warm!
So now we try to make new traditions here in the south. It's a bit of a challenge as we for well over 50 years were in New England; plus, we are older traditional kind of people. But are thrilled that we are able to do some things new and Christmaslike. Last year, we visited Celebration -- the community in Kissimmee Disney built. The town is well thought-out in it's design. It's also quite Christmasy with horse driven carriage rides, a snowfall display occuring every hour in the evening after 5 or 6, and a little train that drives around the community playing Christmas favorites. A quick driveby last week, we saw they added a skating rink on the main road they close down there. I mean snow falling and ice skating in 70 and 80 degrees? But it's man-made magic! Just like most things down here where Disney World reigns. While we like some of those things, we are a bit more traditional.
Imagine how excited we were as we drove on an impromtu trip to Tarpon Springs, just north of Tampa (about 2 hrs from Orlando), and saw a sign at a downtown Methodist Church announcing a live nativity musical in about 2 hrs. We grabbed some dinner, drove around a little seeing the sights in that beautiful Greek community, and then showed up at that church and got a good seat for the show. The music was great, the animals were real (a donkey, a lamb and a goat and well behaved) and the story by the actors (mostly kids and teens) was inspirational. We were thrilled! We met some very nice people. I was impressed that the kids memorized their lines and dramatized them so well. loved the singing voice of a gentleman in the choir who had a solo part. And as we were leaving, the Pastor introduced himself. He asked if we were going to be around for a few days, Kat and I were thinking he probably wanted to visit more as I told him I was a former NH pastor and that I preached that morning in our church in Kissimmee. We were time limited as I had a room reservation about a half-hour north of there.
So that was late Sunday and yesterday after driving through a Gulf of Mexico community called Cedar Key, we visited a beautiful butterfly display at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Kathy had asked about going there about 6 or 7 months ago. It was awesome. We spent the night in St Augustine just south of Jacksonville right on the Atlantic Ocean. This city has great Christmas lights and features we will explore later today and tonight.
But not to be forgotten is the message of Christmas. The Reason for the Season. We have been reading advent devotionals and Scriptures to remind us that among all the lights and glamor, the Real LIGHT of the World is Jesus Christ, the newborn King we celebrate at this time. We were further reminded at the Living Nativity musical, as the final words were being
spoken, that we are cahllenged to believe and follow the Christ who's birth we celebrate now and who would die and rise again (celebrated during Easter).
Even though we are far removed, like 1500 miles, from our beloved New England, we are fully involved in our Christmas celebration here in our new southern home but focusing fully on our Savior, the Messiah -- Immanuel ... God with Us!
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