Christmas Break Begins

Today...my 26th Christmas break (as a teacher) began...and I spent the day with The Husband...out and about, meeting family, having lunch, shopping some, checking off my Christmas to-do list, the one that I just began today, as this has been quite the busy time, a busy semester, a busy month...just busy!

Speaking of busy...may I backtrack...and share three Christmas parties I attended this week?

• Making Choices Bible Study...dinner with my Jesus Gal Pals.  This one time, we have dinner, play Dirty Santa with ornaments, and laugh...and laugh.  A good time!  These seven ladies bless me...all the way to my soul.  
• Then, on to Wednesday evening and Christmas with the children and youth at church, where we made snowflake ornaments and discussed how God made us...all different yet the same.  Goodness, were these kiddos hyped up!  Used that energy to make those ornaments to place on the now full tree!
• On Thursday evening, the Women's Ministry Team provided dinner for the pastors' wives in our church association, followed by a paint party, hosted by self-trained me.  We painted one I entitled "He Grew the Trees."  Yes, He grew the very trees on which He and the two thieves would one day hang.  

A blessed season this has already been.

Yet...I am so looking forward to the next two weeks, for I so need Matthew 11:28:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

I need sleep.  I need to not talk.  I need to cook (and clean!).  I need hours at home with nowhere to go.  I need snow.  (AND this awesome white stuff is in the forecast...multiple times!  Yay!)  I need rest.

God's timing is just perfect, isn't it?  Just when I need this rest, He provides two weeks just for me...(well, and every other teacher across the land!)  He is just BIG that way! 

Today...Day 1...I have enjoyed...and then on the way home, The Husband shared...reminded me...that this year's Christmas Eve Hayride will be the 25th year.  Wow!  He wanted a sign...I envisioned a painting, a real one, that we might keep and hang as a souvenir, so the idea was planted and is already coming to fruition, for he found the board, and the painting has begun...finished product to be chatted about in a future post. 

A very good day!

Hope you find rest this season.  Merry Christmas!