December 2021; you were absolutely beautiful!
Thank you for the awesome memories which we will always cherish.
How strange to be turning the page now and labeling the new year 2022.
We hope you have enjoyed each and every The IN SEASON Lifestyle blog post through out the year of 2021.
The IN SEASON Lifestyle blog promises to only get better in 2022. We have so much to look forward to in the future.
A LITTLE BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Surely this blog is loaded down with different subjects which may tend to confuse people at times by jumping around with our favorite seasonal subjects. Please be patient and hang in there with us when that happens, and we will get back to your favorite subjects when the season is right.
If you have a favorite subject; you can always find your sweet spot for blogging here by going to our menu and clicking on the “TOPICS” tab. You can stick to your favorite subjects that way without interruption; but some of us love flowing with the seasons. After all; moving daily in Christ and flowing with each season of God’s calendar is actually what we are all about.
COME AS A CHILD BIBLE STUDY LESSONS
Of course our main focus will always be the bible study called COME AS A CHILD, and that still holds true for 2022. The blog actually started with a heart for scriptures and this weekly study way back about 11 years ago.
Could it really have been that long?
Yes – time flies when you are having fun.
Did you catch all of our December posts from Deuteronomy 28 and 29?
If not, they are summarized right here: https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/smitten-before-your-enemies/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/curses-from-mans-plans-blessings-from-gods-plans/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/one-nation-under-god-in-2022/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/renewing-the-covenant-with-god/.
We are headed toward the end of Deuteronomy. The blessings and curses have all been discussed, and we are moving on to the renewing of the Covenant before the people actually begin to enter the Promised Land.
These last few chapters of Deuteronomy are FULL of things that we need to consider as we live out our lives today. If you haven’t joined in with us you might want to check out this study. We post it every Thursday under the COME AS A CHILD topic in the menu.
LOVING THE SCRIPTURES THAT COME ALIVE TO US
It is our goal to continue our journey all the way through the scriptures with this study, but we are definitely taking our time along the way. We are continuing our quest of considering all of the wondering questions as we go. It is truly feeling great to have made it this far and almost through the whole Torah portion of the scriptures together on-line. We are also so excited about moving forward from there soon.
The first five books of the bible which we have almost finished studying here give you everything you need to teach, share and understand the gospel. The new is just hidden inside the symbolism of the old, it comes to us in the Torah in types and shadows. Moving on to the rest of the scriptures will help us to unravel some of those types and shadows even more.
The writer here can’t wait to get to those new revelations. We are so grateful to have a God who feeds us on the Word right here every week!
SEASONS
You know how much we love following God’s calendar in this little blogging community.
Some people get confused when we do Advent, Christmas, the secular New Year’s Day and so many other secular holidays that some consider “worldly.” We hear you; and we understand. It is our goal to focus on the Gospel truth here, and not let the world clutter our hearts and minds with wasteful hours of consumerism.
However; God has clearly shown us a few facts that help us through the study of His calendar. We have gone further in the journey now and are more able to see how God reverses the pagan things and sometimes puts holy things into their places. Things that we once rejected out of loyalty and respect to God are made more clear and we have adjusted the lenses of our glasses to see those things.
This is true; and also the opposite is true. Some very pagan ancient practices cannot or have not been reversed at all, and we accept that this is how God has clarified them for us. God does not appreciate pagan practices and we do not want to ever participate in such, or set that example.
We are sticking by our guns on totally ignoring most of those ancient pagan practices that we can clearly see God has not reversed or changed with His mysterious ways of directing time and space and human hearts.
Keeping these thoughts in mine, I hope you will give us grace and mercy and keep reading through these (yes; often MUCH too commercial) holidays and see that God has shown us that December was most likely the month of the Conception of Christ; and that this fact alone defines the time as a definite time for a grand celebration. It is an amazing fact that we do NOT ever want to overlook or ignore. Our whole salvation depends upon it!
We can still agree that people have the dates and times of Jesus’s birth all wrong and we are only celebrating the Conception of Christ at Christmas. Common sense tells us the baby in the manger is three months old in December, or not yet born in the previous year. We know the wise men didn’t appear until Christ was much older and when He was not living in a temporary shelter; but inside a house. Our thoughts are that Jesus was born in the Fall. We continue to celebrate that fact every Fall at The Feast of Tabernacles. We do our best to tie all of this together here; but different cultures have seen parts and pieces and often there are misunderstandings that arise.
The fact that people even question what is true and what is not is actually a good sign to us!
So; yes, we do celebrate Christmas, but perhaps in a way you haven’t considered in the past; and we feel sure God is smiling every minute. If that offends you; we are sorry; but we too felt that celebrating Christmas could be wrong before God showed us those new facts. We are simply responding to what God has shown us so far.
Wasn’t it Solomon who said there is nothing new under the sun? We are sure there are others out there that have seen the same things with wonder and delight.
SERVING THE GOD OF GREAT REVERSALS
Over and over again we have seen how God reverses the evil thoughts and desires of mankind and changes them for the good of His Kingdom. That is the path we are seeking to follow today. We think God intervened with the devil’s plans for Christmas and played a huge joke on him. It would not be the first time God showed us He has a sense of humor.
At any rate; many of you HAVE enjoyed our peculiar brand of Christmas cheer and all the things leading up to them. Even the celebration of the secular New Year. Yes; pagans celebrated New Year’s too, and yes, God does have a different date for starting the sacred year; which we whole-heartedly celebrate here with our deeply devoted Hebraic hearts. You can’t explore our ALL MY DAYS CALENDAR section of the blog and not understand this.
But; if you haven’t noticed this yet; the Jews DO have SEVERAL new year’s celebrations built into their calendars. Not ONE type of new year; but MANY new years according to the subjects at hand. There is one for trees, one for agriculture, one for religion, one for civil facts; etc.
The ancients who were always faithful to God’s calendar DID celebrate their culture’s changing of the dates on the secular/civil/worldly calendars of their governments too; mostly because they were required to live by them legally; if not spiritually. That is all we do when we look at the celebration of the changing of one year into another on the present cultures’ secular calendar.
ACKNOWLEDGING THE TIMES IN WHICH WE LIVE
We are simply acknowledging the times in which we live. We DO still celebrate all the other sacred and civil dates on the Hebraic calendar too. It is important for us to understand the sacred times as opposed to the secular times. This New Year celebration is not sacred; but it isn’t a sin to celebrate. Time can really become a deep subject when you are thinking of the ways of God; and again, I hope no one is offended by our Happy New Year’s greetings when we acknowledge that our present civil calendar has now turned a page.
We have dealt with a lot the “whys” of what we believe about Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year’s back in November in the PIECES OF THE PUZZLE topics of the blog. If you wish to check them out; click the link to our November Newsletter which we will post later in this December Newsletter.
ANNUAL HANUKKAH MEDITATIONS
It is our hope that you noticed we posted Hanukkah meditations from a Christian point of view. We LOVE Hanukkah here; not because we are trying to become Jewish, but because we have seen how the great miracle that happened on that first Hanukkah was symbolic of the coming of Christ, and the fact that Jesus is The Light of The World.
It may sound completely strange to those that haven’t read many of our articles; but to us here; Hanukkah is just another part of Christmas, which is just another way of celebrating Christ with us; Emmanuel. I hope this doesn’t offend any of our Jewish brothers and sisters; only that it might be a bit eye-opening.
So with all of that much-too-wordy explanation; if you want to review all of the seasonal posts we posted in December; they are summarized for you here as well as the SEASONS tab of our blogs menu: https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/the-fourth-sabbath-of-advent-a-meditation-on-transformation-seasons/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/becoming-one-lampstand/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/real-light-hanukkah/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/following-true-light/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/shine-hanukkah/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/truth-light-hanukkah/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/truth-light-hanukkah/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/becoming-a-light-bearer-series-part-one-exploring-the-history-and-the-mystery-of-hanukkah/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/the-light-hannukah/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/the-third-sabbath-of-advent-a-meditation-on-joy-and-love-seasons/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/christian-hanukkah/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/the-second-sabbath-of-advent-a-meditation-on-seeking-and-preparing-seasons/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/the-first-sabbath-of-advent-a-meditation-on-waiting-seasons/.
Of course; almost everything about December was seasonal!
We divided out some of those articles according to how they would be used. You will find articles about December cooking in MONDAY NIGHT MENUS, and articles about December decor in our THE HOUSE DOCTOR topics of December. They will be summarized later in this Newsletter under the proper categories.
THE HOUSE DOCTOR
For years The IN SEASON Lifestyle Blog has shared how we love to decorate for Christmas.
We’ve accumulated quite a collection of themed decorating styles here. We love reviewing each one of them again each year, thinking maybe they will help spark some new Christmas decorating ideas for all of our readers, or simply help them to bask in the beauty of the present season.
If you haven’t caught them yet; here are links to all of our Christmas decorating articles posted each December which, of course, include the newest and latest one for a Glorious Green Christmas: https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/the-year-we-had-a-blue-christmas/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/a-red-bird-country-christmas-for-2019/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/2018-celebrating-a-white-christmas/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/the-beauty-of-a-traditional-christmas/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/my-last-navy-blue-christmas/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/planning-a-glorious-green-christmas,
THE IN SEASON LIFESTYLE’S MONTHLY NEWSLETTER
Did you miss our November 2021 Newsletter? It was full of great posts. We hope you caught it; but since we posted late (almost in the middle of December) we are posting a link to you here again. Enjoy looking back: https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/the-in-season-lifestyle-newsletter-for-november-2021/
You can receive our Newsletter each month by e-mail if you request it. Just let us know in the comments section and we will be sure you receive it and don’t miss it. The same is true of the COME AS A CHILD Bible study lessons we post every Thursday. Just be specific on whether you want to receive either or both e-mails. The bible study lessons come to you once a week after each lesson; the Newsletters only once a month.
MONDAY NIGHT MENUS
We have some very traditional Christmas recipes we have organized which we post every month for the convenience of our readers. You can find that post here: https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/favorite-main-dishes-for-christmas/.
There are also some brand new posts, including a new Christmas Eve Dinner Menu we created. I’m sorry to report this post had a very bad mistake. We left out the link to the recipe for our main dish!
We wanted to give all credit to the original author/chef by posting a connecting link and we forgot to include it. Bummer! Even the best bloggers make mistakes sometimes. That is the nice part about blogging though; you can go back and correct your mistakes. The article has now been corrected and you can find it here: https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/planning-a-nice-cozy-christmas-eve-dinner/
There was another new post that included menus and recipes for a Christmas Brunch: https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/ideas-for-a-christmas-day-brunch/. This one turned out to be so much fun! Here is a photo of Mom in front of our tree. She had a blast and we did too.
PEN ART
Our PEN ART topics usually include various writings or artwork. This end-of-the-year time is always a perfect time to publish the blog author’s thoughts about finding the “glorious impossibles” of the season. We publish them every year; so the PEN ART writings were full of glorious impossibles for you to ponder and enjoy. We hope at least some of these heartfelt articles brought glimpses of love and hope into your days, no matter the circumstances you found yourself living through at Christmas.
That is another one of the good things about this practice of naming the glorious impossibles each year. They show us how God helps us find hope and life through every situation and every day; no matter how hard times can be.
Every year is different. These are the only up-close and personal articles we ever publish; but we think our readers deserve to know us a little better and we hope these articles help to achieve that goal.
Here is a recap of all the glorious impossible articles published in December. They covered the years of the author’s life from 2013 through 2018. 2019 – 2021 had to carry over to the January posts; so look for them in next month’s recaps. https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/glorious-impossibles/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/glorious-impossibles-2/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/glorious-impossibles-2015/,https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/glorious-impossibles-3/, https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/glorious-impossible-2017/
COMING IN JANUARY 2022
January posts of The Glorious Impossibles will continue in the up-coming January posts. The new Glorious Impossible for 2021 will be out shortly. Keep following our PEN ART topics for more of these fun and reflective articles.
The month of January will bring us also to some Winter poetry. We have several winter recipes to share in MONDAY NIGHT MENUS. There is a post for a New Year’s Day feast also.
Our SEASONS topics will feature articles about Epiphany as well as Martin Luther King Day. The Hebraic months will be defined as we go through them in our ALL MY DAYS CALENDAR page. We will be leaving the month of Tevet and entering the month of Shavat. There will be articles that feature what to expect in these times. One Hebraic date that occurs on the same date as Martin Luther King day is Tu BiShvat. The IN SEASON Lifestyle is anticipating an article explaining this day.
The COME AS A CHILD bible study will be ending the Deuteronomy study and beginning the study of the Book of Joshua. If you want in on the beginning now would be the time to start clicking into the blog on Thursday’s. The author of the blog is working on compiling each study we have done so far. You can find her books on Genesis in our Products section in The IN SEASON Community Store for February; and that link is here. The title of the books are THE GOSPEL HIDDEN IN GENESIS, BOOKS ONE AND TWO. https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/the-in-season-lifestyle-community-store-for-february-2022/.
We have a goal to complete the summaries of all of our studies by the end of 2022. Pray that it is possible. If God decides to put His Glory with our impossible; they will be printed before we know it!
There will be so many more new articles in January and throughout the coming year. We hope you will be checking in with us often.
Our readers are cherished and loved here. Please feel free to share any articles with anyone that you feel would be intrested.
GOD BLESS YOU EVERYONE AND MAY 2022 BE YOUR BEST YEAR EVER!
Gail Landgraf/Editor/Writer/Blogger/The IN SEASON Lifestyle blog/ (theinseasonlifestyle.com)