Tag Archives: Christmas

Christmas lights

06 Thursday Dec 2018

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Our town is officially all lit up for Christmas. We have this little park in the centre of town–it’s a spray park in the summer for the kids to cool off, and in the winter, they flood the running track and it turns into an outdoor skating rink through the festive trees.

When I took these pictures a few days ago, we’d melted.  But it still looked so pretty!

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We’ve since gotten a nice dump of snow, but I haven’t gotten back to the park after dark, so these are still my best pictures of the lights from this Christmas.

I hope you’re all having a wonderful holiday season! Take good care of each other. ❤

*****

Have you ordered my book yet? You can get it now, or you can wait to find it on the shelves in your favourite bookstore later this month. 🙂

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Two stubborn hearts. One ranch.

Could Montana Twins unite them?

With orphaned twin infants to care for, Casey Courtright hoped to buy the ranch he works on—but he can’t match Ember Reed’s offer. Nevertheless, Casey agrees to show Ember the land she plans to use for her therapy center, but only if she’ll help him with the babies. And as the twins draw them together, Casey might just find that Ember is his perfect partner.

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I’m not going to apologize

08 Thursday Nov 2018

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The Christmas tree is up! And I won’t even apologize for it. I love Christmas, and while I could have waited a little bit longer to put up the decorations, my ten-year-old couldn’t. He was just dying to get the tree up, and since we got some snow, which put me right into a festive mood, too, I caved. (As I always do.)

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So I put him to work. I have him a bit of help in the actually putting up of the tree,  but he decorated it.

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He loves Christmas more than I do. He’ll go over the decorations, remembering where they came from. He’ll laugh about things he remembers from when he was little. It’s not just a piece of decoration for him. It’s a piece of our family.

Mr. Johns is less of a Christmas person than I am, but he always brightens up when he gets home from work and finds that Christmas has hit our home. The tree is up, the lighting is soft, the garlands are hanging above the windows, and it just feels… warm.

Of course, we’re in Canada, so our Thanksgiving has already passed in October, so there aren’t any other holidays between us and Christmas. So it might be a little different for you if you live in the US.

But Christmas has come to the Johns home. And it feels good!

We need this!

21 Thursday Dec 2017

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This time of year is dark.

I walk my son to school in the dim pre-sunrise gray, and I walk back home again after dropping him off as red starts to tint the sky in the east. By the time I pick him up again and he’s played outside with his friends for about an hour, the sun is already sinking in the west–day complete.

Living this far north, the days are incredibly short, the night is incredibly long, and winter tends to get incredibly cold. (This winter is the exception on the cold, though…) Going without much daylight can take a real toll on a person’s moods, and Christmas becomes more and more important. It’s a sparkle of light in the darkness.

Candle_light,_pillar_candleWe need this!

I look forward to soft glowing lights, the candles, the ornaments. It would all look rather gawdy if it took place in the middle of summer, but put it into the dead of winter with cold, short days, and it becomes magical. It fills our hearts with wonder and hope, and gives us something to look forward to.

Gifts, cookies, syrupy drinks and sparkling lights–it’s just what the doctor ordered for us light-starved northerners, and I feel a strange kinship to the pagans who celebrated yuletide at the very same time of year by burning their yule logs–light piercing through the darkness.

White_Christmas_Tree_Lights_at_NightI am a Christian–certainly not pagan–but there are some things that are just human. They span religion, time, even continents… There is a reason why people have clung to Christmas. We need this.

Light in darkness. Hope for something better. Love and community. Some dream of a white Christmas, others listen for the sleigh bells on Santa’s sled. I wait for the Christmas lights–the soft glow of tiny lights piercing the darkness.

Because in my heart, I’m thinking of a stable and a manger, when heaven touched earth with the Light of the World.

Merry Christmas, everyone! May your holiday be filled all the beauty of the Christmas season.

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This Christmas is NOT a democracy. ;)

21 Sunday Dec 2014

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This year is going to be a very quiet Christmas in the Johns home. In the last five Christmases past, we’ve been busy, busy, busy. Busy is great! Family is great, and I love them all dearly. Don’t get me wrong, but…

Between you and I? I’m really looking forward to a quiet little Christmas with just my husband and son.

Quiet little Christmases don’t make for good book plotting. Big family mayhem is just more interesting to read about, but there are perks to having a quiet holiday in real life.

Here are a few:

1. You get to do what you want to do!

fh0xK4rNo, I’m joking! LOL

But when you have lots of people around, you have to be democratic. In past years, I’ve been consistently outvoted. But with just the three of us, I get to do the one thing I’ve been yearning for for the last several years–go to the Christmas Eve candlelight carol service! Because with just the three of us, there is the “But Mommy really wants this. Get dressed.”

2. Flu recovery!

This has been a vicious flu season for my family. It just lingers, and then revisits us in different forms. I blame the petri dish of the elementary school for introducing us to these germs of mass destruction, but what can you do? A quiet holiday will give us all a chance to rest up.

3. It’s just like we used to do when I was a kid.

I’m a semi-introverted person born to two introverts. That should explain that. 😉

So this year, we’re doing Christmas a little differently.

How about you? Big Christmas? Small Christmas? Unique Christmas? Whatever kind of Christmas you’re about to enjoy, I hope it’s a happy one!

From my home to yours, I wish you a very merry Christmas, and the happiest of New Years!

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A Suess Christmas

10 Monday Dec 2012

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This is a copyright free picture from Wikimedia--so not my adorable children. But aren't they cute?

This is a copyright free picture from Wikimedia–so not my adorable children. But aren’t they cute?

In our house, How the Grinch Stole Christmas is one of our favorite Christmas stories. I grew up watching the animated movie every Christmas, and I still sing “You’re a bad one, Mr. Grinch” with rare enthusiasm. So when we bought the Dr. Seuss book, it filled me with warm fuzzies.

Dr. Seuss has a way of bringing out deeper thoughts in his children’s tales, and as I read the book to my son for the thousandth time, something struck me anew:

“It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
It came without packages, boxes or bags!”
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!
“Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.
“Maybe Christmas… perhaps… means a little bit more.”

How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

Christmas is a Christian holiday, but it’s been taken over by the secular world with ease. I suppose it makes sense. Christians celebrated the Christ Mass at the same time as Pagan Yuletide. It’s easily appropriated. Regardless, Christmas is a glorious, sparkly, light-filled holiday, celebrated with gift-buying and huge feasts. It has become more about marketing and sales power than anything else, but underneath all the glitz and tinsel, there is a truth that can’t be avoided. Christmas, whether you’re celebrating it as a Christian or as a secular holiday, has a spirit beyond the trappings, beyond the store-bought decor.

Christmas IS about a little bit more.

Other cultures have festivals of lights. I’m reminded of Divali, an Indian festival that I learned to celebrate with friends in university. Human beings, no matter where they reside or what religion or non-religion they are affiliated with, long for light–pinpricks of hope in darkness.

Where there is light there is hope. Christmas trees, yule logs, Divali lights, strings of multi-colored bulbs that ring the outside of houses, Chanukah candles… And for those of us who are Christian, we think of the birth of the Light of the World. A tiny, flickering flame that came in the form of a newborn baby, heralded by glowing angels and the light of a mysterious star.

From every culture and nation, we look towards light and we hope for more…

You can take away my ribbons, tinsel and tags, but Christmas is still about the night that God bent low and touched this planet, setting it ablaze with Hope.  Is it any wonder that we feast, feast, feast, feast? Is it any wonder we celebrate, decorate and reach out to each other like no other time in the year?

It’s not about how much money we spend. It’s about something much deeper. Christmas is a time of hope and goodwill.

Merry Christmas! May your Christmas be filled with light, love and a “rare Who roast beast.”