I’ve seen A Christmas Carol twice in the past week and have fallen in love with the story. Both the high school theater production and the Disney animated version starring Jim Carrey surprised me in that they did not shy away from the truly Christian aspects of the story. With much of the dialogue of both productions being taken straight from the Dickens tale, I heard about the light that Christ brought into the world and about the man who would cause lame men to walk and the blind to see. And both productions made generous use of traditional Christmas carols, such as “Silent Night” and “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” After watching these two adaptations, I have determined that I must read Dickens’ original work. Right after I finish Watership Down.
When I think about what Christmas is truly about, I think of two things: the gospel of Jesus Christ and family. Our eldest, Alek, will be with his dad for Christmas this year. Josh and I discussed our plans and decided that Christmas just wasn’t Christmas if we weren’t all together. So at my house, we will be having Christmas Eve and Christmas Day early, before Alek goes to Arizona. And we’ve decided this is how we will celebrate the holiday every year that Alek is not with us on the actual day. He’ll be an adult before I know it and we’ll likely have to spend most of our Christmases without him then. I want to pack in as many Christmas celebrations with him as I can.
On Sunday, Alek and I attended and performed with our ward choir in the stake Christmas musical fireside. It was wonderful. I’m amazed at how much talent we have in our little stake. Two women played the harp, both accompanying various songs and playing a duet as well. As I sat there listening, I remembered how much I love the harp and realized why it is the instrument most closely associated with heaven. We also had wonderful organ music, flutists, a violinist – all wonderful. A young man and woman sang a duet of “O Holy Night” that gave me chills. All the ward choirs picked wonderful songs and sang beautifully. I left the fireside feeling so completely in the holiday spirit and with music in my head for a long time afterwards. Isn’t music truly one of the best gifts we’ve been given and doesn’t music seem to have been almost created for this season? Certainly, for this reason – to praise God and His Son, to thank them for their love and creations.
We still don’t have our Christmas tree up. Since we’re celebrating Christmas in 5 days, this seems like a problem to me.
Josh got a new job this week, drawing the cover for a Sci-Fi magazine. He was asked to take an old Soviet propaganda poster and turn the people on it into a vampire and some zombies (I’m not sure why vampires and zombies are Sci-Fi, but whatever). I would share the picture with you, but honestly, it’s scary. The zombies give me the total creeps. I looked at the finished product right before bed last night. Big mistake. I’d tell you the name of the magazine so you could check out the cover for yourself if you wanted to, but Josh didn’t ask what the name of the magazine is, so, you’re out of luck.
Josh is getting a lot of work. He’s drawing concept art for two comic books, working on his own book, still working on the Kaci Hansen book and will probably now be doing artwork for this Sci-Fi magazine on a regular basis. They really liked his cover and are interested in having him work on interior art as well. I guess they're moving away from using photos and want more hand-drawn art. Plus Josh is home with the kids all day, takes care of them, plays with them, drives them wherever they need to be, cooks dinner, cleans, runs errands . . . so, you know, he is not at all busy.
I have a week and a day off work for the Christmas break. I am so excited.
Speaking of work, today we had our holiday party. The theme was “A Who-ville Holiday.” They were showing the Grinch (the cartoon) on a TV and they had huge posters of pages from “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” all over the room and even had little Max reindeer hats for us to wear. It was a nice break, the food was delicious, and I miss Dad.
2 comments:
Where do I begin? I,too,am always happy to see Christ left in Christmas. I really love religious Christmas music. Hearing Blue Christmas and Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree 10 times a day is starting to get on my nerves. Yay for Josh (Boo for zombies) I miss Dad, too.
I miss dad too. I'm glad that Josh is getting more work. I think it's a great idea to do Christmas as a family. That's the way it should be. How long is Alek going to be in AZ? We would love to see him while he is here if possible. Love you bunches Jess and wish we were seeing you for Christmas!
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