Genevieve C. West

Christmas is a magical time of... FAITH LOVE HOPE JOY PEACE GOODWILL CHEER BELIEF FAMILY I love the tradition of Santa. And I love Jesus. Yep, I get to love them both. So I'm a little annoyed by the whole "war on Christmas" thing. This is a recent development, but it bothers me all the same. Will our celebrations look any different if it's called "Holiday" instead of "Christmas"? Will Christ lose any of His power if nativity scenes & star tree toppers are 86ed? Is Santa really stealing Jesus' thunder? (You can watch a completely inappropriate video by the deep theologians on South Park with super offensive language here . Seriously, don't let the kids hear this stuff.) As followers of Christ ,  we've become known for what we're against instead of who we're for . "I've never met someone who said, "I gave my life to Christ after someone yelled at me for using

We got our Christmas tree yesterday!!! I'm pretty sure that Eric and I both would have preferred a tree with white twinkle lights with classic ornaments in subtle, coordinating hues, evenly distributed over the entire tree with an elegant, crystal star sitting on top. But Evie chose the decorations: traditional candy canes blue, purple, silver and gold plastic ornaments retro-esque multicolored twinkle lights matching retro-esque icicle tinsle - multicolored, of course a plastic star topper that lights up and changes color. The girls decorated the entire rockstar Christmas tree by themselves while Eric and I sat by the fire drinking eggnog and enjoyed watching Evie teach her little sister how to hang ornaments for the first time. You can probably guess this by the 1 sq. ft. spot on the tree that Kaylie claimed as her own and hung 1/3 of the decorations. For a moment, I contemplated moving things around once the girls went to bed... BUT... These kids get a li