Now we’ve left all of the the lovely things of Fall and November behind. We find ourselves coming into the cold and festive winter month of December.
GOODBYE NOVEMBER, HELLO DECEMBER
I think I can speak for the whole world as I say we will be happy to let go of the past year of 2020. Amidst COVID-19, political upheaval, and persecution of many churches; we are glad to wave goodbye to this strange and bewildering year.
It hasn’t been all bad though. As a matter of fact we were able to give thanks and count about a million blessings back in November. So let’s stop and focus on those good things that happened during November and The Thanksgiving season:
REVIEW OF NOVEMBER 2020
THANKSGIVING
I hope your Thanksgiving celebration was great. We feel this time of Thanksgiving brought a glimmer of hope into one of the darkest years of our country’s history.
The family celebrated Thanksgiving at our house as if nothing was wrong. We all thanked God and acknowledged that we are looking forward to learning what else He is going to do in December. Then, we began to move onward.
With God, nothing is impossible. Despite the hard bumps in the road, we can still smile and carry on.
CHANGES
Thanksgiving actually turned into a very lovely day for us.
As we look around, we still see miracles. We know joy. Our hearts can find hope.
This year we have noticed something significant. A feeling of gratitude for everyday blessings has greatly increased. We no longer take the fact that we will find food at the grocery store for granted. Also, we still have work to pay for the mortgage and all of the utilities that keep us warm and dry.
APPRECIATING SIMPLICITY
In the here and now, we make an effort to stop thinking of the financial crisis that could be hiding down the roads of 2021. We shift our focus to consider that we are all still enjoying our homes, our neighborhoods, and our family.
Little things have become more important and cherished this year.
God has helped our grateful hearts learn how to cheer one another by looking at circumstances in new and exciting ways.
A good kind of simplicity has arrived. It has settled over our home.
Times of being together with thankful hearts have become more precious.
PRAYING FOR OTHERS
Thanksgiving for us was an awesome season; even in the middle of a national lockdown. Yet, we realize some people were not as fortunate. Our hearts and prayers go out to all of those situations. We are thankful for those who have recovered. It is good to notice some are now getting back to normal life again.
On a very local level, our gratitude to God has intensified. Our amazement at how He has orchestrated and developed our days has multiplied.
Thinking of this, some of us wrote down our blessings of the year. It is traditional at our house. We placed these thanksgiving notes in the treasure chest which holds notes from many years of answered prayers and blessings.
THANKFUL FOR A NEW GRANDSON
This year we have a new grandson!
We can report sharing a wonderful family vacation/Feast and Festival with him for the first time. The family enjoyed this year’s Fall gathering immensely.
The afterglow of our time together still lingers. It stayed with us through the season of Thanksgiving. Then we made more joyful memories.
NOVEMBER ARTICLES
I hope you caught our November articles.
THE HOUSE DOCTOR and the MONDAY NIGHT MENUS topics of the blog shared some of our favorite past memories of the Thanksgiving season.
We shared our favorite recipes. There were pics of our favorite decorating themes. We found and shared all our favorite recipes for preparing fall feasts. Some articles were classic and traditional. Others took us to Thanksgiving by the Sea. We even shared a time when we had Thanksgiving in a Tuscan Vineyard. It was fun looking back at all of these Thanksgiving memoires as we celebrated this year’s theme of Gratitude and Simplicity.
There are so many wonderful ways to celebrate the seasons of our lives.
COME AS A CHILD
The COME AS A CHILD Thursday bible study continued through November. We enjoyed new lessons in Deuteronomy. Our studies took us to the times when Israel was about to become a mighty nation. God parked them on a mountainside after leading them across a river. He wanted to get them prepared for the future.
PIECES OF THE PUZZLE
We wanted to summarize and finish our series on SHOULD CHRISTIANS BE INVOLVED IN SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES? However, we are saving those serious thoughts until after the holidays. Don’t worry – we have not forgotten. It will be worth the wait. You can find the past articles of this series under the PIECES OF THE PUZZLE category of the blog.
This subject of Social Justice has spanned several months. We will take a short break and a deep breath. We can dive into finishing these articles in January. That seems fitting, since we will also celebrate Martin Luther King Day during that month.
THE COMMUNITY STORE/PRODUCTS
There were many special products picked with our readers in mind for November. We hope you enjoyed them as you browsed THE IN SEASON LIFESTYLE COMMUNITY STORE.
It was our pleasure to feature our own author/editor’s first publication during this month. The publication of THE GOSPEL HIDDEN IN GENESIS – BOOK ONE OF TWO has been very successful already. We are saving our book launching time for after the pandemic subsides.
You can still find the book for sale on Amazon.com.
NEW FEATURES
THE GOSPEL HIDDEN IN GENESIS – BOOK TWO OF TWO is moving right along and will be published sometime before the end of the year. Book Two promises to be even more exciting. It is full of interesting stories and characters. There are even more than we put into Book One. Watch for it!
In the meantime; Book One would be a perfect Christmas gift to all of your friends. The book is great for those looking to find a good devotional and/or a good bible-study book. Small groups will enjoy discussing the topics we cover. If any of you decide to do a ZOOM study, please let us know. The author would love some feedback.
HAPPENINGS FOR DECEMBER 2020
CHRISTMAS IDEAS GALORE
You know we love celebrating the conception of Christ in December. It is always a second celebration for us.
We actually celebrate the real time of His glorious birth at the Feast of Tabernacles in the Fall. However, we are aware that fall birth had to have a beginning in December. Winter would have been the right date for marking the beginning of Mary’s pregnancy with Christ. So, the blog does become rather unusual in December. We celebrate the nine months that Mary was carrying Jesus. This ties in with our Hanukah celebrations, as most Christians who celebrate Hanukah know that the great miracle that happened was Jesus. Everything about Hanukah points to it. We ponder the wonder of Emmanuel – Christ coming to live with Us. God grew inside Mary as a tiny seed. This is a great wonder.
Advent is all about the wonder of how God sent Christ to us. We ponder how He was like us; yet He was God. It is almost unthinkable to know how we can grow with Him inside of us. He experiences the same miracle of life that we experienced. Then we have to ponder the whole new type or being born-again into eternal life.
Such a pondering season!
DATES AND TIMES
A Christian Hanukkah that celebrates Christ as The Light of the World just helps us to complete all of the joy of knowing that God had a plan with the sending of His Son to earth to save us. Mary willingly gave of herself in this awesome adventure. We should all be such faithful servants. Hanukkah takes us on a journey of miracles. When we open our eyes we see the greatest miracle of all; Jesus – The Light of The World.
So, our advent devotions might be a little different here. We might not even use that word – “Advent.” We hesitate because these are the things we want to ponder and remember in their own due seasons. This concept of conception, light and life is what we will celebrate during the season. Jesus gave them all to us as precious gifts. So mostly we think of Him. He is our beloved.
THE HOUSE DOCTOR
THE HOUSE DOCTOR has so many beautiful decorating themes to share with you.
Each December we try to come up with a new theme.
This year we are going to use some navy blue. We can’t wait to share all of those ideas with you. We have spent many of our December blog articles just showing you all of our holiday decorating ideas.
PIECES OF THE PUZZLE
This was the beginning of the times when we first tried to accept and follow God’s perfect clock. It wasn’t intentional, but we mixed more than we probably should have. In the years that follow you will see a deeper transition. We wanted to share our whole journey. It came in small steady steps in the right directions. Often we made mistakes, then God showed us more. We are ever thankful for God’s grace and mercy. For instance, at first we had no qualms about celebrating with a tree. We defended our logic with great passion. The article called, THE QUESTON OF TREES; from the PIECES OF THE PUZZLE section of the blog explained how we defended ourselves. A lot has changed since then, but everyone is on a different place in this journey. Things unfold as God allows. We had to be ready to abandon a lot of untruth. We did that slowly, as God showed us more and more of Who He is.
We rounded those “in between” thoughts with other similar articles. It was deliberately decided not to remove them. Others could be in the same place. Our decisions came in small steps and we feel it is important for others to see that progression as we blog through the years.
HANUKKAH MEDITATIONS
Please don’t miss our Hanukah meditations. We have one for each day of Hanukkah. They will lift your spirits. We hope they bring you joy. It is thought that we should meditate as in the days of old. Surely a miracle is happening here. It happens even as we speak of God and His gift of Jesus Christ to us.
The rest of December will be full of recipes; happy thoughts, gift ideas and ways to enjoy the season; pandemic or not.
COME AS A CHILD BIBLE STUDY
The COME AS A CHILD BIBLE STUDY published on the blog every Thursday is still studying the scriptures in Deuteronomy during the month of December.
We are looking at the fact that God is setting up a new and different type of government as he slowly transitions Israel into a Godly nation. Some of these patterns and ideas are analyzed through the concepts of our own government today.
Do we need to make some Godly changes in America?
God is patiently teaching us, just as He was teaching those old Israelites.
Keep coming back every Thursday. Our bible study group keeps walking through the scriptures. We are moving page-by-page. Wondrous things happen when we bring ourselves before God with the heart of a child. Our group is seeking to know everything about Our Father. We are learning so much from this perspective. There are no wrong answers. God is showing many different things, according to our own needs.
THE COMMUNITY STORE
The IN SEASON Community Store has a fun line-up of December PRODUCTS.
Our own book – THE GOSPEL HIDDEN IN GENESIS is featured. Why not order from the blog where it was birthed? We appreciate all the support we can get from our cherished readers. You are the reason we keep on writing and producing manuscripts. These books we produce are simply summaries of what we learn in our bible studies. One book of the bible at a time is summarized.
THOSE GLORIOUS IMPOSSIBLES
At the end of every December we love to publish our thoughts of the civil year just passed. We especially love to share the wonderous, glorious impossible things we found along the way.
Keep watching for a review of many years of Glorious Impossibles from past posts, Also, look for our review of our Glorious Impossibles for 2020. They always happen at the end of December.
Here is wishing you the most joyous holiday season ever!
Remember God is bigger than any pandemic or problem. Let Him fill your heart with peace, good cheer and brotherly love.
And may your heart find all of the glorious impossibles it desires.
GOD BLESS YOU EVERY ONE!
Gail Landgraf/Publisher/Editor/Writer/The IN SEASON Lifestyle Blog/Via Wordcastle Publications LLC