Christmas and Sundry

Yesterday was John's office Christmas party. 

We exchanged "white elephant" gifts. John definitely got the epitome of a white elephant gift. It got the most laughs anyway, but I noticed no one else wanted to "steal" it when they had the opportunity! Later I coaxed him to try it on to see if it would fit.

It fits :-)
In case you're wondering, the little Christmas lights on the glasses don't light up. 

It was fun to see people I haven't seen for a while. I was encouraged when one lady, Ann Bush, said that she enjoyed reading my blog posts while we were in Australia. I apologized for not finishing them yet. She said, "it doesn't matter!"

I appreciate her non-perfectionistic attitude. 

John chatting with one of his bosses, Michael Cochran

Before the gift exchange, Michael shared some thoughts on Christmas and invited others to share thoughts too. 

John shared thoughts on how scripture says that Jesus is the image of God.*

For thousands of years God taught his people, the Jews, not to worship graven images-- objects that they had made. No man made object could ever embody God's essence. 

But when Jesus came he could and did fully embody and represent God. He is the true image of God that we can and must worship.

In some mysterious way even coming as a baby was an important part of representing God's image. He wasn't plunked down fully grown. He was a living breathing growing fully human and fully God, four- dimensional image (three dimensions plus time.) It's like God thought that a sinless human life lived perfectly from beginning to end while facing the worst that people can throw at him was the best way for God to show us what he is like.

As an adult Jesus showed God's love and power by his sinless life and amazingly loving-miracle-working-ministry, and then ultimately by willingly dying a completely unjust and brutal death on the cross. But he didn't stay dead. He demonstrated God's power by defeating death and rising from the dead.

He did all that because he loves us and wants us to have a relationship with him and be with him for eternity.  

*"Christ is the visible image of the invisible God." Colossians 1:15 (NLT) The Amplified Translation reads: "He is the exact living image [the essential manifestation] of the unseen God [the visible representation of the invisible]," 

"The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being." Hebrews 1:3 (NIV) The KJV reads "the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person."

Here are a couple of group photos after the white elephant exchange: 

Last week we put up our Christmas decorations at our house.  

We also put a couple of strands of colored lights on our red bud tree outside. They're LED lights we already had. I don't like LED lights on the tree indoors but they look well enough outside. 

John untangling one of the strands.

I know it's not the whole tree, but I'm practicing im-perfectionism.

John also put up some new white lights part way around the patio. We've had white lights around the patio year round for several years but they were only about half working and had partly fallen down. So now the new ones look much better. He used bulldog clips to attach them to the vinyl siding on the eaves. Hopefully the clips won't rust. They hold the lights much better than the paper-clips we used before. We sometimes like to sit outside in the evening when it's warmer until the mosquitoes drive us, especially John, indoors. The white lights give a nice gentle glow.

 

Here's a photo of our visit with my Mom on Thanksgiving Day. My last post about Thanksgiving was a couple of days before the holiday.  So here's a photo from the day itself. My brother, Paul, came down to our house and we three went and visited my Mom at her assisted living facility.