Tuesday Tell All - Post Christmas

How was your Christmas? Do you have a favorite memory from it? Is there anything you would change for next year? When do you take your decorations down?

What Can I Give Him?

"What can I give Him, Poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would give Him a lamb, If I were a wise man, I would do my part - But what I can I give Him, Give my heart."

 ~Christina G. Rossetti, 'In the Bleak Midwinter'

Christmas

"The way you spend Christmas is far more important than how much." 

~ Henry David Thoreau

Freebie Friday - Christmas

'12 Overnight Breakfast Casseroles for Christmas Morning' - Free eCookbook

To download, click HERE

Christmas Morning Cinnamon Rolls

These looks delish, and you make them ahead of time of Christmas Eve. Yummo! Click HERE

Letter From Santa Stationary Printable

Wouldn't a reply from Santa be fun for a kid to receive:). Click HERE

Free personalized call from Santa

This is a fun freebie! Right now, you can send a FREE personalized phone call from Santa to someone you know or to your kid(s)! I’m not sure, but it looks like you can use this to send as many calls as you like. So, you may be able to send one to each child. Could help keep up the good behavior before Christmas:). Click HERE.

(Thanks to freebies2deals for this one)

Santa & the Infant Jesus

May be a great correlation children will understand

5 x7 print for download, click HERE

Free 'Christ is the reason for the season' Printable

Click HERE

Believe in the Spirit of Christmas Printable

comes in 5 x 7 or 8 x 10, would be cute on a wooden block, or in a frame. Click HERE

and lastly, MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL, and thanks for visiting my blog, you guys make doing it worth it :)

Christmas, Giving & Sacrifice

"Christmas means giving. The Father gave his Son, and the Son gave His life. Without giving there is no true Christmas, and without sacrifice there is no true worship." 

 ~Gordon B. Hinckley~

Tuesday Tell All - This Christmas

I love this quote about Christmas:

“This year, mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Write a letter. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word and deed. Keep a promise. Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Apologize. Try to understand. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Be kind. Be gentle. Laugh a little more. Express your gratitude. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love and then speak it again.” 

 ― Howard W. Hunter

So, what is something you want to change this Christmas?

Freebie Friday - Christmas Finds

Free 5 x 7 Printable

Click HERE

"There has been only one Christmas, the rest are anniversaries."

W. J. Cameron

Printables

They come in 3 styles (shown below). You can print these out at Office Depot for only .20c on legal paper - nice! Click HERE

Or this one, click HERE:

Christmas Organized!

Free printables to help you be organized this Christmas - brilliant! Includes, Christmas gift list, Christmas food planner, Santa's survey, and December calendar.  Click HERE

30 Neighbor Christmas Gift Ideas

If, like me, you are a procrastinator, here are a lot of last minute neighbor gift ideas. 

Click HERE

Christmas Cookie Ideas

This is probably the easiest Christmas cookie to make - this blog also has lots of other ideas for cookies too. Click HERE

DIY Gift Bows

You can put your little kids to work and has them color the paper for the bows, use pretty paper or even book pages. Click HERE for info.

An Ideal Christmas

"There is no ideal Christmas; only the one Christmas you decide to make as a reflection of your values, desires, affections, traditions." 

 ~Bill McKibben

Christmas Gift Suggestions

CHRISTMAS GIFT SUGGESTIONS 

To your enemy, forgiveness 

To an opponent, tolerance 

To a friend, your heart 

To a customer, service 

To all, charity 

To every child, a good example 

To yourself, respect. 

~Oren Arnold

The Nativity through a Child's Eyes

This is so cute and thought-provking at the same time - a MUST WATCH!


Small child narrates the Nativity and suggests that people should show greater love to each other--thus, following Christ's example.

Freebie Friday - Christmas Finds

 Free Christmas Tree Printable

Click HERE

Another Free Christmas Tree Printable

Click HERE

Names of Christ Subway Art

Available in many different color combo's

A great way to remember the real reason for Christmas:)

Click HERE

Lots of Super CUTE Scrapbooking Papers and Elements

Click  HERE

Melted Snowman Cookies

Just because they look so cute (and yummy!)

Click HERE

Christmas Pot Pourri

The best smell ever

Click HERE

Tweet

Each of us is an Innkeeper

'Each of us is an Innkeeper who decides if there is room for Jesus!'
~Neal A. Maxwell


Click HERE for free download of printable of image

A Gift to the World

Inn Crowd or Stable Few?

"Are you part of the Inn crowd, or are you one of the Stable few?"

Spirit of Christmas

"To really get the spirit of Christmas, we need only drop the last syllable, and then it becomes the spirit of Christ."

Thomas S. Monson

Dear Santa

Dear Santa, 

This year please give me a big fat bank account and a slim body. And please don't mix those two you like you did last year. 

Thanks.

Free Letter Sized printable of this, HERE - you know, incase you want to mail it:)

Spanish Version

Mary

I just wanted to share a thought a friend of mine posted on her blog, I think it provides a thought-provoking insight into Mary:

"One of the novels I read was Irving Stone's biographical novel of Michelangelo Buonarroti, "The Agony and the Ecstasy". Not an easy to read in a day or two, but a very good book, from which I learned a lot.

One of my favorite thoughts was about Mary, the mother of Christ. You may be familiar with a few of Michelangelo's more famous works, specifically the Sistine Chapel and his Pieta, but I didn't know much about him. In the novel, it portray's a thought process, which I don't know if he actually went through before each work he did, but it did cause me to think, and learn, and I would like to share an excerpt from the book, in regards to Mary and her child, which he has been commissioned to do. He searches through the works of others, trying to get ideas, "not looking for portraiture but for the spirit of motherhood." I pretty much like the entire chapter, but am only going to share a few paragraphs, which are a little lengthy, but something which I would like to have a reference to.

"Striking off into the hills, with the feel of the steep slope under him, he realized that he had not yet come to grips with what he wanted to convey about Mary and her child. He knew only that he wanted to attain something fresh and vital. He fell to nursing about the character and fate of Mary. The Annunciation was a favourite theme of the Florentine painters: the Archangel Gabriel come down from heaven to announce to Mary that she was to bear the Son of God. In all the paintings he remembered, the news seemed to come to her as a complete surprise, and apparently she had been given no choice.

"But could that be? Could so important a task, the most important assigned to any human since Moses, have been forced on Mary without her knowledge or consent? Surely God must have loved Mary above all women on earth to choose her for this divine task? Must He not have told her the plan, related every step of the way from Bethlehem to Calvary? And in His wisdom and mercy have allowed her the opportunity to reject it?

"And if Mary did have freedom of choice, when would she be likely to exercise it? At the Annunciation? When she had borne her child? At the moment of suckling, while Jesus was still an infant? Once she accepted, must she not carry her burden from that moment until the day her child was crucified? Knowing the future, how could she subject her son to such agony? Might she not have said, 'No, not my son, I will not consent. I will not let it happen'? But could she go against the wish of God? When He had appealed to her to help Him? Was ever mortal woman cast in so pain-fraught a dilemma?

"He decided that he would carve Mary at the moment of decision, while suckling her infant, when, knowing all, she must determine the future: for herself; for her child; for the world."


Can you imagine being in Mary's position, knowing what would be required of your son, knowing that you are powerless to prevent His suffering, knowing also that even though you gave Him the gift of life, that He in turn would give His life that we all may have ETERNAL life. It is hard to watch your child hurt in the slightest, I've often thought that I wish I could take their pains away when they hurt or are sick, that I would happily go through it in place of them, how great a woman she was to know what was required, and to say "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word" (Luke 1:38), no wonder she was chosen to be the mother of the Savior. Thank you Mary.

The Real Meaning of Christmas

The Christmas Spirit

"Born in a stable, cradled in a manger, He came forth from heaven to live on earth as mortal man and to establish the kingdom of God. During His earthly ministry, He taught men the higher law. His glorious gospel reshaped the thinking of the world. He blessed the sick. He caused the lame to walk, the blind to see, the deaf to hear. He even raised the dead to life. To us He has said, 'Come, follow me.'

"As we seek Christ, as we find Him, as we follow Him, we shall have the Christmas spirit, not for one fleeting day each year, but as a companion always. We shall learn to forget ourselves. We shall turn our thoughts to the greater benefit of others".
(Thomas S. Monson, "In Search of the Christmas Spirit," Ensign, Dec 1987, 3).

True Gifts

"We all enjoy giving and receiving presents. But there is a difference between presents and gifts. The true gifts may be part of ourselves—giving of the riches of the heart and mind—and therefore more enduring and of far greater worth than presents bought at the store.

"Of course, among the greatest of gifts is the gift of love....

"Some, like Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens's A Christmas Carol, have a hard time loving anyone, even themselves, because of their selfishness. Love seeks to give rather than to get. Charity towards and compassion for others is a way to overcome too much self-love"
(James E. Faust, "A Christmas with No Presents," Ensign, Dec 2001, 2–6).