Christmas Sunday Funday

No video this week. It is Christmas and I had a baby. Good enough reasons to rest.

Tuesday I had a baby. More on that to come (video and blog and many thoughts over the next couple weeks, I am sure) and Saturday night we came home and I climbed into my own bed and had a bit of the “How do I keep this small human healthy and happy?” Anxiety, followed by tears and a grateful prayer of “Thank you God we are home.”

Home home? Maybe. No. Yes. This was our first Christmas in Brazil. Not in the USA. Not sledding on Christmas Eve with my siblings and their fresh snow (jealous!). Not hugging my father who made it home from the hospital after scary blood clots were found in his lungs last Sunday. No, this Christmas Eve was feeding, changing, and sleeping with a brand new baby while snuggling, laughing, and watching Netflix with my big girl daughter and husband. And it was perfect (although my aching body kept yelling at me that I was in recovery and needed to quit moving).
Christmas was four parts:
1. Stockings and candy breakfast with just our little Fergie four
Skype Winzeler Christmas where we opened presents “together,”
Brazilian Christmas with our friends the Kirbys who cooked amazing things while I didn’t lift a finger,
FaceTime Ferguson Christmas where more presents were opened “together.”
We finished up the day with popcorn and Muppet Christmas Carol and prayers of thankfulness. It was beautiful and wonderful and thank you for being a part of our lives.

Jessica is one week old today (December 26th)

Reads from the Interwebs:
1. 9 Ways to make the Most of Christmas Abroad
2. I couldn't do this without you: "Goers get the glory, but the senders are the saints"
3. Opps, I went Home for Christmas: great visuals for culture/counter culture shock
4. Charlie Brown Christmas: “It is our shame and disgrace today that so many Christians… go through this world in the spirit of the priest and the Levite in our Lord’s parable, seeing human needs all around them, but averting their eyes and passing by on the other side. That is not the Christmas spirit…For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor––spending and being spent––to enrich their fellow humans, giving time, trouble, care and concern, to do good to others — and not just their own friends —– in whatever way there seems need.” J.I. Packer
5. Parenting in real life: Ministry version: some great practical advice. Number one word: Intentional.

Here is a summary of our 2017: