We've been busy finishing our celebration of the twelve days of Christmas. Each day the girls opened one gift containing an activity, movie or craft that they could do together. I liked the idea of having twelve days of corporate gifts if for no other reason than to teach them how to peacefully share in the opening. On day one there was screaming and tears and even some hitting. By the 10th, 11th and 12th days, they proved that they had learned how to sweetly share the task.
On New Year's Day we went out to dinner and to the Shady Brook Farm light show. The kids all sat up in the front seat and had a wonderful time looking at the lights. It was a spectacular event. A keeper for next year's to do list.
We set out a "Good Things Jar" for 2014 with the idea that we will write down special moments throughout the year and read them all on New Year's Eve 2014.
The first good thing I put in there....one of Nora's little man drawings:
And another "good thing" that happened this week....
I was going through my closet to get rid of some things and I put one of the shirts on Claire. Nora asked to wear one too and their dress-up game quickly turned into a Christmas play. I am so glad I grabbed the video camera to record their precious production:
On Sunday we hosted an Epiphany Party. Mark's parents and his sister's family came. The kids made wiseman beards and crowns. We had a treasure hunt to find baby Jesus and a dramatic reading (with costumes and props) of Matthew 2:1-12. I made an ice cream bombe creche for dessert.
Later we burned frankincense and myrrh and did this house blessing ceremony. We will end our Epiphany celebrations by watching Amahl and the Night Visitors.
What a wonderful year 2013 has been. Life really does seem to get better with time - not always easier, but fuller and deeper and richer. I think with each season that goes by I understand more about the man I married and his great worth. I guess I can say the same about my kids and myself and God. I found this poem that I want to share with you by John Greenleaf Whittier which I have adopted as my own psalm for the new year.
My Psalm
I mourn no more my vanished years
Beneath a tender rain,
An April rain of smiles and tears,
My heart is young again.
The west-winds blow, and, singing low,
I hear the glad streams run;
The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.
No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.
I plough no more a desert land,
To harvest weed and tare;
The manna dropping from God's hand
Rebukes my painful care.
I break my pilgrim staff, I lay
Aside the toiling oar;
The angel sought so far away
I welcome at my door.
The airs of spring may never play
Among the ripening corn,
Nor freshness of the flowers of May
Blow through the autumn morn.
Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look
Through fringed lids to heaven,
And the pale aster in the brook
Shall see its image given;--
The woods shall wear their robes of praise,
The south-wind softly sigh,
And sweet, calm days in golden haze
Melt down the amber sky.
Not less shall manly deed and word
Rebuke an age of wrong;
The graven flowers that wreathe the sword
Make not the blade less strong.
But smiting hands shall learn to heal,--
To build as to destroy;
Nor less my heart for others feel
That I the more enjoy.
All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told.
Enough that blessings undeserved
Have marked my erring track;
That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved,
His chastening turned me back;
That more and more a Providence
Of love is understood,
Making the springs of time and sense
Sweet with eternal good;--
That death seems but a covered way
Which opens into light,
Wherein no blinded child can stray
Beyond the Father's sight;
That care and trial seem at last,
Through Memory's sunset air,
Like mountain-ranges overpast,
In purple distance fair;
That all the jarring notes of life
Seem blending in a psalm,
And all the angles of its strife
Slow rounding into calm.
And so the shadows fall apart,
And so the west-winds play;
And all the windows of my heart
I open to the day.
Beneath a tender rain,
An April rain of smiles and tears,
My heart is young again.
The west-winds blow, and, singing low,
I hear the glad streams run;
The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.
No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.
I plough no more a desert land,
To harvest weed and tare;
The manna dropping from God's hand
Rebukes my painful care.
I break my pilgrim staff, I lay
Aside the toiling oar;
The angel sought so far away
I welcome at my door.
The airs of spring may never play
Among the ripening corn,
Nor freshness of the flowers of May
Blow through the autumn morn.
Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look
Through fringed lids to heaven,
And the pale aster in the brook
Shall see its image given;--
The woods shall wear their robes of praise,
The south-wind softly sigh,
And sweet, calm days in golden haze
Melt down the amber sky.
Not less shall manly deed and word
Rebuke an age of wrong;
The graven flowers that wreathe the sword
Make not the blade less strong.
But smiting hands shall learn to heal,--
To build as to destroy;
Nor less my heart for others feel
That I the more enjoy.
All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told.
Enough that blessings undeserved
Have marked my erring track;
That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved,
His chastening turned me back;
That more and more a Providence
Of love is understood,
Making the springs of time and sense
Sweet with eternal good;--
That death seems but a covered way
Which opens into light,
Wherein no blinded child can stray
Beyond the Father's sight;
That care and trial seem at last,
Through Memory's sunset air,
Like mountain-ranges overpast,
In purple distance fair;
That all the jarring notes of life
Seem blending in a psalm,
And all the angles of its strife
Slow rounding into calm.
And so the shadows fall apart,
And so the west-winds play;
And all the windows of my heart
I open to the day.
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