The Rannebargers

You're just going to have to wait.

It should be no big surprise to any of you that I still have a few dozen days to write about. Follow through is not my strong point. The good news is that I actually did follow through on the actual events for each day and we had 25 successful Advent activities. They kids had a blast and even though there were more than a few late nights when I realized that I hadn't come up with the item-for-tomorrows-box yet, every day included some special Christmas related activity. I even took pictures and wrote down what we did for each one. It's just going to take a little while to flesh it out here for you. In the mean time, enjoy the pictures from our Thanksgiving adventure with the Stockdales in southern Missouri at Pinecrest Camp.

A belated Merry Christmas to you and yours.
And a very Happy New Year, too!

Seven? Wow, I'm really behind.

We wanted to watch "show" (as our kids call anything on a screen) about Christmas before we put up our nativity set. Of course I specifically wanted one about the birth of Jesus and not one of the zillion Cartoon-Character's-Zany-Christmas-Special's that are out there. I picked up The Nativity Story from the library's video section but a quick preview showed it was too intense for the kids. (We're looking forward to watching it after they go to bed in the next few evenings.) But that left a dilemma as to what to watch. Blockbuster was NO help.

I called our local LifeWay bookstore and the lady there graciously looked through their available DVDs and read the description of a few of them to me. Since it seemed like one of those would work, I packed the kids in the car (including one with a fever) and drove toward Lifeway near downtown Orlando late on a Friday afternoon. Crazy.

Actually it didn't end up being that bad. I figured out how to get all the way there with out using any of the major (read: Colonial Blvd) arteries. Gotta love those honeycomb Winter Park neighborhoods. I guess all that garage-sale navigating is paying off!! It seems strange that I know this area as well as I do. I think I've lived here longer than just about any other place I've lived. Anyway... We made it there, picked up The Story of Christmas and got back just fine.

The DVD was... interesting. The animation from 1994 leaves a lot to be desired compared to the fantastic CGI of today. And the dialogue was a little… how shall I say... canned. But I really didn't mind that it was basic. That's what I was looking for: something basic for my preschool age children.

What I didn't like was that it was a little too intense. The story, told from a donkey's perspective, seems to be more focused on King Herod and his jealousy than on Jesus himself. The film starts with the villainous Herod and keeps going back to his murderous intent on Jesus life. Of course they don’t “show” anything, but the terrified mothers and the vicious looking soldiers raising their weapons were enough to give you a good picture of what happened in Bethlehem and why Jeremiah prophesied that there would be great weeping there. The story then follows Joseph and Mary as they take their child to Egypt to protect him from assassination. I can’t remember ever seeing a film portray the time Jesus spent in Egypt and, as an adult, I enjoyed this segment of the film quite a bit. I feel like it gave me a better perspective on who Jesus was, on His roots, if you will. (One of Rich Mullin’s final uncut songs comes to mind: “My Deliverer” on The Jesus Record. Terrific stuff.) Even so, it was too much for my kids. A good chunk of the film’s 45 minutes was “scary” for them. Not how I wanted them to remember their first nativity movie.

Now that I think about it, this DVD follows Matthew 2 very closely. Nothing wrong with that. It’s just not the gentle Luke 2 version to which we are more accustomed. Maybe I need to change my perspective. The Bible deals with reality and the reality is that Jesus did threaten Herod’s world, and ultimately He rocks the world of every person. Like C.S. Lewis noted in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, “Safe?... Who said anything about safe? Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

Still, I think I’ll wait until the kids are a little older before we use this DVD again.

Enough with the DVD review. Afterward we got out the Nativity set. Cora kept calling it the "Activity" set.

Snow White is even curtsying in worship.

I'm trying to keep up!

December 6 found us with the folks from our Connect Group in Winter Park at a Carols-in-the-Park event. The Morse Museum of American Art lent a number of Tiffany stained-glass windows for the event that were illuminated around the park. The Bach Festival Choir performed for standing-room-only city park filled with picnic blankets and strollers.

We squeezed in with our friends and enjoyed a range of traditional and contemporary Christmas music. My favorite moment was when the first strains of The Hallelujah Chorus sounded and the entire park came to it's feet. I don't care if the tradition is true or not, or even if it's just because ol' king George needed a potty break. I think it's incredibly worshipful! I love that thousands of other central Florida music lovers willingly participated in something so worshipful, even if they have no idea Who they are worshiping. An interesting site with all the Scripture Handel referenced can be found here.

Enjoying the evening with friends made it all the better and the kids did pretty good even though it was crowded.

I'm not sure but this might be the first time Cora had been around a real horse. Check out her joy.

An Orlando Christmas

On December 5, my Aunt Beth was in town on business and we took the kids downtown to join in Holiday Lights Orlando. A fun time was had by all.

We made friends with the couple sitting on the steps next to us.

Cora shows Ms. Jean her snack.

The tree lighting was the highlight of the night. Too bad you can't get a good picture of the tree and our faces at the same. We'll settle for the faces. 

Aunt Beth enjoyed some Christmas under the palm trees. It was snowing at her house while we were at the tree lighting here!!

The other highlight was meeting the Mayor of Orlando, Buddy Dyer.

Another recap.

I really thought cutting out paper snowflakes would be fun for the kids... but it ended up being more challenging than I expected. First of all, did you realize snowflakes have 6 sides? YOU try folding a piece of paper in to a hexagon. See?

Even though Joel helped me figure it out the night before, it was still pretty  challenging to get the paper folded. I finally switched to folding coffee filters. Much easier. But Jason got bored pretty quick and mostly wanted to just cut paper for the heck of it. And Cora got really, really upset that she was having a hard time with the multiple layers of paper (and being left handed with the scissors didn't help) and just got down and left. That left me and our friend Becca to fold and cut to our hearts content. We made a few pretty ones and called it a night. 

The next day the kids were asking about when it would snow here. I really felt sad for them. It was in the 70s here this weekend. We did read a fun book about snowflakes a few days before we did this project. Snowflake Bentley tells the true story of Wilson Bentley who in 1885 developed the microphotography method that first allowed the world to get a glimpse of these majestic creations by photographing a single snow crystal.

It's amazing to me that God has been creating zillions of unique snowflakes for his own enjoyment since the beginning of time. No one else was able to see how beautiful they were with the naked eye. And then it wasn't until 1885 that people around the world could enjoy the vast beauty of snowflakes through Bentleys work. I'm glad we are able to join God in enjoying this part of His creation. I hope my kids get to enjoy it someday soon!

"For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God." Romans 1:20