Christmas~ The Joy of Giving!

 One of the privileges of going to CNC is to get to be a part of the Homeschool Group.  And one of my Favorite Field trips is going Caroling to a nursing home in our area.  (We meet in Nov for our annual Thanksgiving dinner and each child makes a gift(or two) to pass out at our Dec mtg.) We go caroling to the Home there and the children play Christmas recital pieces, recite poems or readings and sing group songs, then we carol through the halls singing to those guests that aren't able to get out.  Each year is very special for one reason or another.  This year as we were singing, a Gentleman came out in the hall, found out we were a home school group and invited us into his room for a REAL,LIVE, History class. 
He and his wife lived in a room together and had it fixed up so sweet and homey. The story he shared with us was...  he was on a ship in the war... and the details are foggy, but I was so interested to hear him telling the kids his story.  He'd written his own book about it.  His sweet wife just sat there on their Loveseat and listened with a look of honor and respect for her husband of many years.  It was special!

 Above picture shows a piece of wreckage from the ship he was on... it was shot at while he was on the ship by a plane... a buddy of his drew what the plane looked like etc... later crumpled it up and threw it in the trash. This gentleman happened to find it while emtyping the trash and kept it.  He picked up a piece of the wreckage that was flying everywhere as the plane was shot and crashe right in front of their eyes, but their ship was spared. He retrieved the drawing  and some years later someone had it framed for him with an actual piece of the plane from the Kimikaze attack.

The Drawing

 Here is Bryan with this gentleman.  It was so enlightening for the kids and I was SOOOOO happy for that man to get to share with a group of eager-to-learn-children!

A Ship like he would have been on, though not his exact ship.

 One of my favorite things to do at Christmas Time is CAROL.  As a child, Daddy would take us caroling every year as our Wed pm prayer mtg close to Christmas.  We would walk through our little town, all bundled up, knocking on doors and caroling, then we'd come home for Hot Cocoa and Cookies.Thanks, Daddy for making that so much a REAL part of GIVING for Christmas! I want to make that happen for our family... and this is one tiny way to do it.  Thanks, Aunt Nesi for all your labors of organizing to make this happen.  It's my FAVE field trip every year!!!


Another part of GIVING this Christmas was the girls being in the GBS Christmas Program.  Natasha's 1st year as a part of the Orchestra and Brittany's 1st year as a part of the choir.  We are so thankful they are using their talents for the Lord!  Thank you Gram and Gramp for the mad dash, out of your way and so tired... to come by and hear the girls... I mean listen to the program! Smile! Your sacrifice was touching and meant LOTS to all of us! I LOVE how you both! You always look so festive! Makes me SMILE!

 We always choose to go on Sunday night, for the cast seems most relaxed in their parts and can really enjoy themselves. (in our humble, unbiased opinion, of course!=)  We also enjoy getting to have a few guests over for fun after the night performances.

 

Daddy and His Girls... all grown up!

 More to come... ~Laura