On the twenty-fifth day of Christmas Heroes...

Wishing you all a blessed Christmas this year, as we remember the birth of our King!

Now, take it away Captain Marvel.  Shazam!

Christmas with the Super-Heroes

You really can't have Christmas without the superheroes!  Merry Christmas!

Christmas Day!

First, Some Memories of Christmas Eve:
- Opening our presents to each other
- Candlelight Christmas Eve service at Grace with Rachel and Patrick playing the piano
- Reading of the Christmas story from Luke
- Daniel and Rachel's dramatic reading of The Night Before Christmas

Daniel and Rachel take over the tradition of reading The Night Before Christmas, with a dramatic flair.

- Putting reindeer food out on the front lawn

Feeding reindeer

Then, the big day:
Christmas Day was a blessing.  Santa had come the night before so we got up (not too early) and everyone went down to the Family Room.   

The obligatory Christmas morning on the steps picture

We open presents one at a time on Christmas morning so that we can enjoy the time together without rushing through it all.  Santa was good this year and we laughed a lot.

 

 After breakfast, we made the trek down to West Point to spend the rest of the day with Lisa's parents,  her brother Tim and family, and Granny.  AND IT WAS SNOWING!!

Yes, we had our white Christmas this year.

Wright and Elliott cousins

Patrick, Daniel and Nicholas

Snow in West Point

A Savior is Born!

"...Fear not:

for, behold,

I  bring you good tidings of great joy,

which shall be to all people. 

For unto you is born this day

in the city of David a Saviour,

which is Christ the Lord." 

Luke 2: 10-11 

Adoration of the Shepherd by Charles Le Brun

Falling asleep...counting my blessings!

Lisa and I went last night to the Empire Theater in Richmond to celebrate her birthday and see the musical "WHITE CHRISTMAS".  It was a fabulous show!  We thoroughly enjoyed the songs, the costumes and the entire production.  A fun date night out on the town for us.

One of the songs was "Count Your Blessings" and some of the words are as follows:

"If you're worried and you cant sleep,
just count your blessings instead of sheep
and you'll fall asleep counting your blessings."


What a great message for this time of year (as well as any time really).  I could start counting my blessings:  Lisa, the kids, our home, mom, my bros, a bed to sleep in, food for breakfast, a car, coffee, a Bible to freely read, clothes, friends, etc etc.   I could go on and on and on and fill pages with blessings from the Father.

What a great reminder of God's love toward us!

Christmas with the Wright Clan in Lyndhurst

This past weekend, we went up to Mom's and "did Christmas" with her, my brothers Tom and James, and their families.  There was snow on the ground which really gave it the white Christmas feel. 

 

My home church SherLynd Baptist had their annual Christmas cantata on Sunday morning.  James was the narrator and Mom, my sis-in-law Tammy, and my nieces and nephew were it in.  What a great picture it painted of the night Jesus was born and how He changes lives!  Rachel and I wished that our church in Richmond would do something like it.

Christmas presents around the tree, good deep fried turkey, the old Christmas record playing on the record player and lots of laughs.  It was again sad that Dad wasn't there, but brought back wonderful memories of him and past Christmases.

All the grandkids!

Jaden.

Everyone got Christmas socks!

Mom and her grand-daughters!

"Count your many blessings!" - Wright Christmas 2010

Unsung Christmas Heroes

Sometimes there are threats to Christmas that mere mortal man is often unaware of.

In these times of Christmas trials, the world needs heroes to make sure that bells will be ringing, that Christmas joy will be bright, and that gifts will be delivered through the dark and snowy night.


If reindeers are AWOL and Santa needs a lift,

  

if too many toys weigh down his bag,

 

should too many Christmas cookies make a tight fit,

 

or Scrooges try to make Christmas a drag.....

 

our CHRISTMAS HEROES will be there to save the holiday!

 

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat!

I'm starting to get excited!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Christmas is a big deal at the Wright house!  Lisa truly has a thousand bins of Christmas stuff - wreathes and Nativity scenes and snowmen and Santas.  And it grows every year!  This year we brought it all out and it was a weekend deal to "get decorated for the holidays."

We headed out to Hanover Pines Christmas Tree Farm in Beaverdam, VA to cut down our own tree.  They have a terrific set-up there where you take a hayride out into the woods and are dropped off to start the search.  Once you have found your tree and cut it down, they hoist it up on the back of the wagon and take you back to the office, where they shake, bind and tie the tree to your vehicle, all while offering free hot chocolate and hot cider.   A great deal!  We picked our tree out pretty quickly this year.  It's only about 10 1/2-11 ft. tall, a little shorter than our usual 14 ft. tree, but it is one of the prettiest we ever have had.

The whole family, including Daniel home from college, decorated the tree to the sound of Christmas music.  Lisa put on the lights, as usual because she is the only one with patience for it, and the rest of us hung our collection of 1 million (it seemed) ornaments.

A fun holiday tradition, as we start to prepare for the celebration of our Christ's birth!