SAYING GOODBYE TO 2019 IN DECEMBER
Did you catch our December articles?
I think this might have been the most posts we have ever used in one month. There was just so much sharing to do in the month of December. Now we are already having to tell December goodbye and we must keep moving ahead to a new civil year.
What part of December did you enjoy the most?
It would be so hard to pick a favorite part of this amazingly busy month.
THE HOUSE DOCTOR
We started the month out with a lot of sharing from THE HOUSE DOCTOR topics.
This blog continued its tradition of using theme decorating ideas for each season and we shared a lot of our past December decorating schemes as well as a favorite new theme.
From the past we included a classic, traditional Christmas, a year of a white Christmas, and another year when we enjoyed a
blue Christmas. http://THE YEAR WE HAD A BLUE CHRISTMAS http://2018 – CELEBRATING A WHITE CHRISTMAS http://THE BEAUTY OF A TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS
We hope you enjoyed all of the revisiting of the past, but most of all we hope you were inspired by our vision this year for a Redbird Country Christmas. http://A RED BIRD COUNTRY CHRISTMAS FOR 2019
Sharing the decor we use in our homes for each season just helps to stretch all of the seasonal fun. We hope you were inspired in some way as you browsed our pages during the holidays.
SEASONS/PIECES OF THE PUZZLE
Of course, the whole month of December wasn’t JUST about Christmas. You might have been surprised at some point along the way to discover that The IN SEASON Lifestyle blog doesn’t celebrate the birth of Christ during Christmas (we celebrate that all year long, every single day) but we think Christ was born in the Fall of the year and we specifically celebrate His birth during the time of The Feast of Tabernacles.
So why do we have so many Christmas articles?
Well, we believe that Christ was CONCEIVED during the same time as our month called December, so we DO celebrate the Christmas season in light of the fact that this was when Jesus officially came to live among us; though he still would have been in Mary’s womb instead of already born. (Or a year later in what we call December, He would have been three month’s old.)
So; due to the miracle that He came to be with us at His Conception, we celebrate Immanuel – Christ with Us – during the Christmas season and we spend a lot of the time that others use considering “birth” during Advent thinking about “pre-birth” and the process of a child’s life until birth occurs. We note that we grow the same way spiritually. The Church should be nurturing us very similar to the way that a baby is formed inside a womb.
From conception to birth is a very remarkable journey for everyone; but it is totally miraculous when it is the journey of the Christ Child into the spaces we call life. We soak in the wonder of it all during this season; that God could have loved us so much that He sent us His only Son, even to go through nine months of the complete formation into a life that can be “birthed” just the same as all of the rest of us.
Many of these slightly the same, but slightly different, seasonal thoughts are covered in our article that is posted almost every year now in December which is called http://HOW GOD MAKES ALL THINGS NEW – PIECES OF THE PUZZLE – IN RELATION TO THE DATE OF CHRISTMAS.
There are also some other celebrations going on during our celebration of Christmas though; because we also celebrate the Christian meaning behind Hanukkah, which is a fact that others might at first also find confusing.
Though Hanukkah is basically a holiday commemorated by the Jewish nation, that history is where Christianity found its roots and we consider it part of our history too. In our Hanukkah celebrations we recognize and honor the Messiah as The Light of the World, and we think that message was portrayed so beautifully with the great miracle of the lights that occurred on that first Hanukkah years ago. It is a joy to remember this story every December.
If you missed our eight days of Hanukkah meditations; they are reposted for you here:THE LIGHT THAT IS REAL – A MEDITATION FOR THE SEVENTH DAY OF HANUKKAH – PART 8 – EXPLORING THE HISTORY AND MYSTERY OF HANUKKAH http://FOLLOWING THE TRUE LIGHT OF THE WORLD – A MEDITATION FOR THE SIXTH DAY OF A CHRISTIAN HANUKKAH – PART 7 – EXPLORING THE HISTORY AND MYSTERY OF HANUKKAH_TRUTH http://TRUTH AND LIGHT – A MEDITATION FOR THE FOURTH DAY OF A CHRISTIAN HUNUKKAH – PART 5 – EXPLORING THE HISTORY AND MYSTERY OF HANUKKAH BECOMING A LIGHT-BEARER SERIES PART ONE; EXPLORING THE HISTORY AND THE MYSTERY OF HANUKKAH STAR
As hard as this seems sometimes we also have stopped to consider that a lot of paganism has crept into our Christian celebrations; and we cover this in several articles where we discuss our feelings about certain traditions like, Santa, Christmas Trees and Advent Wreaths, etc.
Our take and how to handle the pagan side of these things might be a bit unique. We believe in truth, we hate paganism and we stress grace and love.
You can read about it in these articles; if you missed them:http://DEALING WITH THE “S” WORD – WHAT TO TELL YOUR KIDS ABOUT SANTA – SEASONS THE QUESTION ABOUT TREES – PIECES OF THE PUZZLE – PART OF A SERIES OF ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS OF CHRISTMAS ADVENT WREATHS – SHOULD CHRISTIANS USE THEM? – PIECES OF THE PUZZLE – QUESTIONS ABOUT CHRISTMAS SERIES
PEN ART
The PEN ART topics of the blog usually cover any type of artistic articles, interviews with local artists, and/or talk about their ideas.
We certainly consider the written word to be an art form; and last month we posted a fictional story that speaks of Christmas, Hanukkah and Epiphany all three for our readers enjoyment during ALL of the season. You can read it here: JUST ONE LITTLE STAR
We also published our very timely poem called THE LAST EPIPHANY OF THE YEAR. If you missed it; you can catch them here: https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/cleaning-up-epiphany/.
PRODUCTS
All of the products advertised in the blog are in some way related to our publications.
If you want to glance at our products freshly recommended in December you can find them here: https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/the-in-season-community-store-for-december-2019/. Many other products are also scattered within the pages of the articles which they relate to.
Remember our links never grow old here, so you can click on last year’s posts in The IN SEASON Community Stores for any of the previous blog months and still place orders. They will take you directly to our link with Amazon; as we are an Amazon affiliate. You can order on this blog for the very same price you would buy direct from Amazon though we might earn a small amount too; so why not share the love and order from us. It helps to pay our publishing costs.
Our Community Store for each month is featured under our “Products” topic. The Products tab isn’t with the other topics. To get there you need to click on “Home” first, then “About” where you can see all of our Newsletters and/or all of our Product articles. Just click on “Products” from there and you should see all of the monthly posts for our Community Store. Keep clicking the arrows to take you to the previous pages until you find the older product or community store articles which you are interested in.
It is a good idea to look at the seasonal articles a month ahead of time so you can place your orders accordingly.
In the future we will link you to a store that we are setting up on Shopify too. It is a work in progress right right now, but this is where we will sell our own products which will be mostly our books, novels and publications. We also hope to discontinue our “Contest” tab and move the shopping features over to that part of the blog. It is all an on-going process, so keep watching and just know that we are constantly trying to improve the whole experience for our cherished readers.
There are a few “star” products that you will constantly be reading about on this blog that are posted in our “Products” section, such as our IN SEASON Family Tree ideas. The Family Tree is one of our favorite things to advertise because we feel it is all about teaching and/or celebrating each season of the year; and it is also just a lot of fun and a sure conversation starter for all of our gatherings. The ideas we have had so far seem to be endless; so we keep improving on our concept to offer you the most workable solutions to get the best use from this one little birch tree that likes to teach.
The little tree (which lives in our kitchen most of the time) is just another small way we have chosen to use in numbering and counting our days as we go through life.
Often in December we have used our Family Tree with the theme of “The Stars In The Sky” which is the tree that the short story for this month was written to compliment. If you bought it last year; we hope you are using our story with it whenever appropriate.
Another type of writing often used in our PEN ART column involves essays. This month we spoke in essay format about the extraordinary being right in the middle of our ordinary lives. At the end of each civil year the author likes to look back and reminisce about the days lived out over the last year. Each year as time passes she looks for what she calls “the glorious impossibles.”
This month we published several year’s worth of those articles for your reading pleasure. It is our tradition to share each of these every year. They help us remember how time has developed and that in each year, though so different in nature; how God has blessed us.
These very personal and intimate articles might have sparked memories of things that were meaningful and touching during your own year. If you found any glorious impossibles in 2019; we would love to hear about your stories too.
Our whole collection of “glorious impossible” articles will eventually be published in book form and they will be a short story collection that showcases some of our favorite photos – yet another form of art that we love.
Should you wish to re-read any of this on-going series of annual essay articles; you can find the latest here, then just follow the provided links at the bottom of each page: https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/the-in-season-community-store-for-december-2019/
COME AS A CHILD
In case you haven’t noticed, this COME AS A CHILD, every Thursday weekly bible study, is the heart and soul of our blog. All of the other topics just compliment this mission to walk all the way through the bible together with the wide-eyed eyes of wonder, very similar to a child holding the hand of their father as He walks and talks to them about the things of life.
December carried articles of study lessons from our current studies from The Book of Numbers with topics that covered obedience, judgement, first fruits offerings and sacrifice. We hope you enjoy the articles and commentary and find it helpful and inspirational. Our commentary makes this a little like reading an on-going adventure novel that teaches scriptures as we go. If you missed December’s lessons; they are linked here: https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/over-confidence-is-a-very-bad-thing/ JUDGEMENT DAY WILL COME https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/good-laws-and-sacrifices/ https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/first-fruits-offerings-are-very-important/
There were so many more articles scattered through this amazing last month of the civil year. We didn’t even mention yet that we posted an article featuring our favorite main dishes to use for Christmas meals. You can always find all of our recipes and table-talk articles under the MONDAY MENUS topic.
Is that enough reading for one month?
We might have been a bit carried away in December! Hopefully, it all blessed you anyway.
LET’S MOVE ON TO A FRESH NEW YEAR IN JANUARY
As much fun as we had with so much celebrating and remembering in December; sometimes it is nice to know that we have a whole new year full of empty days to do all of the ordinary things that make the world go round. All the celebrating and fun require a pinch of ordinary self-help articles here and there to help us clean, organize and re-group in January. We will bring them in the coming month.
Also- we’ve really blown our diet and exercise routines by now with all of the feasting and festivities; so it is a good time to re-focus on the matters of good health and nutrition. These are coming soon.
Here at this community we are more into the sacred calendar of God than the civil calendar of the world, but we DO live on planet earth and because of that, we must tend to things that help us relate to others in our civil lives too.
One day everything about this earth will be renewed and set exactly to God’s will. In the meantime, God has put us in these circumstances for many good reasons. There are always just some things that we have to use the new civil calendar for and we are well aware of the fact that we face a new civil year every January; so let’s turn the page to the common sense things of civil life a bit during this month.
2020 SOUNDS FUTURISTIC TO US
The year, 2020 sounds so futuristic.
2020 means “perfect vision” so let’s hope our actions of the new year line up to the meaning of the numbers.
That said; I hate to be the one to have to let you in on this secret; but nobody is perfect. In spite of our constant humanity; we have set up a few new articles that relate to January as the first month of the civil year and we hope they might be of interest everyone.
You will find the more philosophical side of this subject tucked in our articles under the GROW OLD WITH ME TAB, where we try to find the gold of growing older and might be discussing things like the value of friends, family, grand-children, community and/or finances, and making day-to-day chores, necessities and life decisions easier and less-stressful.
CONSIDERING TIME
Since so many are noticing the fact that the times are changing; we have done a whole series of articles that relate specifically to “time.”
This is a path to an experimental idea we had to discover how to best use God’s lunar calendar while living and existing in our modern days. We will take you with us on this exciting journey if you wish. It should be unique and interesting.
The whole idea is to simplify God’s clock for our life in mordern times.
Who knows where this experiment will lead us.
No matter what – we will definitely learn some things along the way.
CONSIDERING SOCIAL JUSTICE IN OUR CURRENT CULTURE
January is the month when America celebrates the life of the honorable deceased civil rights leader; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We usually post articles that recall some of his life stories and how they have affected us today; but this month (in his honor) we are exploring a political/religious theme that he followed called “social justice.”
The question we are asking is what exactly did this concept of “social justice” mean to Martin Luther King, Jr. in his lifetime; and how are people using this political theory today? Are they the same?
What has changed since the days of Mr. King?
What would he think of our political and religious dealings today?
Would he still agree or participate?
This will be one article we ponder in January.
FINDING THE WONDER OF THE WINTER SEASON
The main thing about January (new year or not) is that winter has settled in around us and we like to find ways to lift our spirits during the dark, dreary days of winter.
These discussions are coming soon.
There are ways to find the wonder of winter as well as ways to escape the cold and the lack of light. Life is all about perspective and we want to give your winter eyes a happy and cheerful perspective.
We have some book reviews, some travel articles and some day-to-day life articles to combat the bleakness of winter. You will be smiling when they are done; maybe even singing.
Keep reading.
ORGANIZING OUR GOALS AND OUR LIFESTYLES
It is just natural every January to take an in-depth inventory of where we are at in attaining our life’s goals.
Do we need to work on health?
Are there areas of finances where we could improve before this year is over?
Maybe it is time for a career move or change, or just an improvement to exactly where we are now.
What are the best ways to go about all of this?
What really matters most as we stay on this journey through time together?
How can we best organize our daily lives so that we put the proper focus where it is most needed for wholeness and a happy, well-rounded lifestyle in God’s perfect will for our life’s destiny?
These things and more will be pondered as we move on through January of 2020.
We are so happy that you have chosen to share in our thoughts and conversations here. Our lifestyle is all about community and we want to hear more from you in 2020.
In the meantime;
God bless you everyone!
Gail Landgraf/Editor/Writer/Publisher/The IN SEASON Lifestyle/Via Wordcastle Publicaitons LLC