Mary

I love being pregnant at Christmas.  

Maybe because I feel things more with a little baby growing inside me.

I think about Mary a lot.

How she experienced all that she did.

All that traveling at the end.

Giving birth in a barn.

It makes the whole thing feel more special, more holy.

When I am pregnant, I feel a connection to her.

Not because I am anything like her but the connection all pregnant women have,

we know what the other is feeling, physically, partly emotionally too.

We know what is coming for each other.

Every woman who is growing a baby is so special and at Christmas, when we celebrate the birth of our Savior, being pregnant really helps me to think of him, because babies are so much on my mind already.

It also very much makes me think of Mary, celebrate and revere her.  

For doing what she did.

For being the woman to bear our Lord and bring him into this world.

For being willing.

And for doing it under the least desirable of circumstances.

What a true woman.  

I love these thoughts, I am glad that my circumstances help me to truly feel love during this time

Because that is why He came.

The Goose is Getting Fat

I'm all filled up with Christmas love!

It's the kids you know, having them to teach makes Christmas special again, and music.

Also the sun is all shiny and there's snow!

My ridiculous kitchen is pretty much under control too.  

So I am feeling free and overcome with the desire to make all sorts of yummy treats

(and give them away! what's up with that, I never used to want to share, guess it's all that Christmas love) 

I'm make these, they are so pretty.

Happy Christmasing

Opera

Oh theater how I love you!  

I love that you are so grown up,

and your live music is so living.

I love that you are the perfect date

and somehow much more interactive than a movie even though we talk way less.

I love that you make me feel like this girl

and that reading your helpful English text screen above the stage 

makes me hear Mr. Bhaer/My Honey's voice softly whisper to me.

While I don't love your over priced and slightly stale snacks 

you more than make up for it with your wonderfully tiny and sparkly old ladies. 

I love that by watching you I discover that this familiar aria is not a typical love song but actually a daughter charming what she wants out of her father!

Oh theater how I love you!

(Our's was so different from these, it was 50's era and more playful, still they are fun.  Being a Daddy's girl is a great universal theme to mix things up a bit from the typical themes of love and jealousy.)

without text

with text