Wonderful Christmas Reflections

Through the years Christmas has grown and traditions have naturally changed. This year Christmas began with the Christmas Eve candlelight service at Second Baptist Church with Dr. Ed Young. This has been our tradition for the last few years and it is a lovely service that never disappoints. As things have changed it was just Tony, Pat, Dan and I - a small but intimate family gathering! The night was filled with the traditional carols of the seasons and was focused on the redemptive power of the life of this child born in a manger.

We were delightfully surprised by a solo of "O Holy Night" done by Mark Ballas (Dancing With The Stars) Thanks, Mark, for making this video of that performance available to us! It was amazing!!!

Christmas morning was spent with Tony, me and Mr. Darcy opening our presents to each other. I decided to include the above video of Mr. Darcy receiving his bag of toys. He loooooves toys and was focused on one in particular!!

Jeremy and Meagan spent Christmas Eve with her Mom, Step dad, Grandmomo, sister and brother and were going to come over sometime after breakfast depending on Sawyer's schedule.

Can you guess where Josh and Jamie were spending Christmas this year? If you said the North Pole, I wouldn't have blamed you but it is Minneapolis!

In that tissue somewhere is the best baby in the whole world!! And I can say that because it is 11:30 am and at 2:00 pm he needs to be at his "Geeps" (Meagan's dad's) to celebrate with his family and at 4:00 pm he is going to try to see his great grandmother and great grandfather at my sisters house!!!

Sawyer loves books!! His favorite is his Bible and my prayer is that it will always be!!!

Look at that baby still in his cute Christmas jammies!!

One of his other favorite things is music! He loves clapping hands to songs and so we got him some musical shakers!

Did I mention he is cutting some new teeth. What he is holding is a large puzzle piece that has a large wooden knob on it that fits perfectly in his mouth!!!

OK, it may not have been the most practical gift but it is a signed picture of Colt McCoy and it is a happy memory for the Hamblen family. We were all present (including Sawyer) to see Colt's last game as a Longhorn! (Yes, he got hurt and yes, we lost but still...)

This gift was from Auntie Jamie and Uncle Josh and was a big hit!! It was a shame they weren't here live to see it but Josh did call and we were able to "face time" with him.

A lot of our pictures were blurred due to the fact Sawyer was a boy in motion!!

It is 4:30 pm Christmas Day and we are at my sister's home for an early dinner and he is still smiling!!! His shirt says "Mommy's Best Gift"! Too cute!

Pat's home was beautifully decorated and she could have fed the neighborhood and it was delicious as always! Sadly, as I am going through my pictures I don't see any of my sister or her delicious feast! That is indicative of the fact she was always working and my cameraman was eating when the food was ready! ;-)

Sawyer brought in one of his Christmas gifts from "Geep" to show the girls. And he was so sweet to share as they all wanted to play with it!

Hannah shared her ball with Sawyer!

More toys to open from Hannah and Kate!!

It was nice to have Erin home for Christmas this year! Now, if we can only get Lucas to come in on the same day!!! (Sorry, Amy, I don't think Tony realized you would be in the line of fire from the flash!)

What a sweet family!!

Meemaw and I were helping Katie acclimate to her new picnic table!!

And as we all prepare to go home so the babies can make their bedtimes, Tony takes one of my favorite photographs of the day!! I know it was a hard day for a lot of people but memories captured like this are priceless.

Change has always been very hard for me but that is what life is - change! And I am sure next year's holidays will change again but the one thing that never changes is God's love for us! It is like the explanation of the Christmas tree that I give my Sunday School class. I tell them we use an evergreen tree for our Christmas tree because God's love is everlasting! How does He love us..

Isaiah 49:16 says He loves us so much He engraved our name on the palm of His hand.

Matthew 10:30 says He loves us so much He knows how many hairs are on the top of our head.

Psalm 56:8 says He loves us so much He saves our tears in a bottle.

Jeremiah 31:3 says He loves us with an everlasting love.

And most importantly...

"This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." 1 John 4:10

God's holiness demanded that sin be paid for, and then God's love found a way!!