We were actually supposed to be driving to Texas today, but the bad weather through Oklahoma delayed us for a day :(. But that means I have a chance to tell you about my Christmas day!
My youngest siblings were up at 6:40 in the Christmas morning excitement. They weren't allowed to go into my parents' room until seven (the door was actually locked). I didn't get up till around 7:30 and it was about 8 by the time we all gathered around the tree. Before breakfast, we did the first part of our gift exchange. Every year we draw names and get presents for the one person we drew. Mom and Dad get presents for the kids too, but it is so much fun to just have one person to focus on and find something you know they'll like. I had Olivia and got her the whole Chronicles of Narnia series, since they're the first books she's actually enjoyed reading. Avery got me a really awesome pocket-watch necklace that I'd seen before and loved, so that was exciting. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of it, so you'll have to wait to see it till I do. Unless I wear it somewhere before then (which is very possible...)
Anyway, after that, we had a wonderful breakfast of Dad's homemade cinnamon rolls. YUM! Then before we dove into the rest of the gifts, we took some time to act out the Christmas Story, one of our few traditions. I memorized Luke's account of the Jesus' birth over the past two weeks, so I was nominated as narrator. Dad was Joseph, Mom was Mary, a baby-doll was baby Jesus, Sam and Olivia were shepherds, Jake was a sheep (sort of...) and Avery was an angel. It was a rather rowdy reenactment, partially from the 'sheep' barking at the shepherds and partially from the shepherds' excitement about the presents to come after, but it was still good. At least, I enjoyed thinking about Jesus' birth again. I always do. Mom also read a passage from Romans about God's love (I think it was from chapter 5...?)
When we finished, we opened the rest of the presents. My biggest (and probably most exciting) present came from my parents.
I am so excited!!!! I've been wanting to do this ever since we finished OYAN and I finally can! I'm not sure if I'll start when school picks up again or if I'll try to get farther on the other novel I've started. Oh, I suppose I should explain what Other Worlds is :). It's a follow-up curriculum to One Year Adventure Novel. It builds on the ideas taught in OYAN but is specifically focused on how to write Sci-fi and Fantasy :D.
Another exciting present is this:
The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson. I've read the books before and I have them all on my kindle, but I thought it would be neat to have hard copies of all my favorite books (so I could annotate them if I wanted to). So that's what I asked for for Christmas (yes, all my favorite books.) The Wingfeather Saga is one of my favorite series one, because it's fantasy, two, because it's a good story, and three, because the author's voice is so fun to read. He develops the plot at a good pace, the characters are likable and yet still flawed, and his fantasy world is also well-developed. His writing is often very humorous (for example, the introductions at the beginning of the first book--hilarious!) but he still conveys dread at the moments it's needed and the bad guys are bad. The flow of the words is very easy to read and understand and it does an amazing job of creating a 'movie' in your head. There are sweet parts, scary parts, sad parts, moving parts, funny parts. I don't feel like I'm doing an adequate job of describing them. Andrew Peterson is one of my favorite authors. Yes, I'm re-reading these books (if you look closely, you can see the top of my bookmark in On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness). No, you can't borrow them till I'm finished. Lucky for you, the Manhattan Public Library has all three. Except they're all checked out right now by one of my friends to whom I recommended them.
In the evening, we went to our 'Kansas family''s house and enjoyed a night full of good food, great friends, and fun games. A highlight to remember for many, many years!
Well, I have lots of reading and writing to do in the near future! I hope you all had Christmases as merry as mine. God bless you in this coming year!
Now, GO READ THE WINGFEATHER SAGA!!!!! ;D
I LOVED seeing more pictures of your presents... it kinda makes up for me not being able to come over and see them! And I loved your (tempting) description of Andrew Peterson's books... you may not think you did an adequate job describing them, but you certainly made me want to read them!!
ReplyDeleteSounds like you had a really special Christmas! My family does a sibling gift-exchange, too, and so does my husband's, so I got to be part of two this year! Lots of fun. :)
ReplyDelete