The Christmas Jollies

Unless your name is "Scrooge" or "Angry cashier at Walmart," you're probably excited about Christmas. Most people are. I'm especially excited about Christmas this year for a couple reasons.

1. It's our first Southern Christmas.

There will be no green chile ornaments given this year and no biscochitos to snack on. I'm ok with that. Instead, I got Jenn an ornament that commemorates our first (of many) Southern Christmases together and we'll be snacking on...well, I don't know, but it won't be biscochitos.

2. There will still be some Southwest flavor (or "flava" if you will).

Although it is our first Southern Christmas, we know our roots: the Southwest. Although I don't get into wearing turquoise and we've never owned a nativity set made of adobe (not the software program), I do enjoy some of what New Mexico had to offer. One of which is the luminarias (NOT "luminaries"). Candles, seated in sand, placed in a brown paper bag (not a milk jug - the Southern way), lighting up the night are a beautiful sight. We're bringing a little of that Southwest flavor to the South tonight. As you drive up to Awaken, you'll see the luminarias on the sidewalk by our sign as well as lining the walkway by the church. Hopefully you won't like them so much that you'll want to move to the Southwest. If you like them that much, hang with us - there will be more occasions to bring them out!

3. It's Awaken's first-ever Christmas Eve service.

Firsts only happen once - your first dead Christmas tree, your first frostbite, the first time you burned your curtains because you got a little too candle happy - you know all those grand memories. Today, many memories will be made as we celebrate Christmas as a church body for the first time together. Most of us had never met this time last year, and now, we will bring our families and friends together and celebrate together for the first time. Love it. Oh, and we'll be jamming on our brand new sound system for the first time as well, compliments of Mile High Calvary. Our one ghetto speaker served us well for 3 months, but I'd be lying if I said I was sad to see it go.

We hope you, your friends, and your family will join us tonight for a very special family-style Christmas Eve service. It goes from 6:00-7:00pm tonight at the church. It will be a very interactive, fun, festive service, so make sure to be there.

Oh, and rumor has it, the pastor might actually pull out a nice button-up shirt for the occasion. What?! I guess you'll have to come to see for yourself.

Jesus in a Shoebox

Americans love shoes. According to this site, Converse alone has an annual revenue of over $16 billion. That calculates out to... A LOT of shoes. I'm confident with that estimate 1) because I did the math, and 2) because, if you find it on the internet, it must be true, right? I digress...

November 18 (2 weeks from tomorrow) is Awaken's deadline to bring in Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. We finally got around to doing our last night. While my mother-in-law watched Adalyn at home, Emery, Jenn, and I hit up Wally-World. Walmart is a killer place to go for shoebox gear because they have lots of small, cheap toys so you can jam those boxes full of killer stuff for the kids. We had a budget in mind, but as you'll find, you can easily get carried away while shopping. We ended up spending double what we had in mind. Oh well. It's worth it. Once we got home, we took the giving a step further and had Emery choose almost new toys out of her own toy box to include in the shoe boxes. She was stoked to give of what she had to "nother boys and girls."

Every year, Samaritan's Purse (run by Franklin Graham) ships millions of boxes around the world to kids who barely have anything. It's a hands-on way of sharing Christ with them, because they come in the name of Jesus. Many cities and churches around the world who receive shipments of these boxes put on big Christmas crusades with singing, dancing, performances, games, as well as the shoe box distribution. They're able to share the Gospel - the true meaning behind the boxes - then hand them out. As any of you who are parents know, when someone reaches out to your kid, they reach out to you too. These gifts don't just effect the kids, they preach to the whole family!

If you want to learn more about OCC, here's some info from their site.

Bring your boxes into Awaken by Wednesday, November 18, then we'll take them to the local drop-off center to be shipped out. Make sure to include a donation of $7 for each box to pay for the shipping costs. You can also donate online this year, through Samaritan Purse's EZ Give program. If you choose that route, your box will be equipped with a bar code that will allow you to track where your gift ends up! Super cool! Enjoy.