For Us?

On December 1, we received this anonymous basket full of wrapped presents:

This was no ordinary basket of gifts, directions were included. There were a total of 24 gifts and 1 gift per day was to be opened. The gifts were all numbered and had a Bible reference and a name of Christ. How wonderful is that? We were trying to find some meaning of the gift in the scripture reference but quickly realized there wasn't any connection just pure fun.

The opening of the gift always came after our advent reading so we dubbed the basket the Advent basket. As you can imagine, there were minor arguments over who opened the gift the day before or two days before, etc. Brianna has a friend that comes over almost every Thursday night so we included her in on the fun and that was her night to open a gift. Alas, the 24th arrived. The last gift. Oh, the fun was coming to a close. Did I mention that a card was included on the last gift telling us who all those wonderful gifts were from? Of course, we had a knock down drag out fight over who got to open the card and I believe Charles won. Brianna guessed who it was, Chris and I thought it was someone else, and I don't think Charles made a guess. You know what? I'm not telling who it was that gave us this awesome basket. They will remain anonymous because what if you're the recipient some year? Don't want to spoil it for you.

I sat one afternoon with the cards in order and read through the names of Christ and looked up all the scripture references and was totally blessed. Something really cool, is that in a lot of those references is God's name "I AM". The gifts were great but the tags pointed us to THE GIFT!

Jesus, THE Greatest Gift

I have a new favorite hymn. Although it was written in 1851, by Edward Caswall, it is new to me. Here it is:

See, amid the Winter's Snow

See, amid the winter's snow,
born for us on earth below,
see the tender Lamb appears,
promised from eternal years.

*Chorus:

Hail, thou everblessed morn!
Hail, redemption's happy dawn!
Sing through all Jesrusalem,
Christ is born in Bethlehem.

Lo, within a manger lies
he who built the starry skies:
he who, throned in height sublime,
sits amid the cherubim.

*Chorus

Say, ye holy shephers, say-
what's your joyful news today?
Wherefore have ye left your sheep
on the lonely mountain steep?

*Chorus

"As we watched at dead of night,
lo, we saw a wondrous light;
angels singing, 'Peace on earth,'
told us of the Savior's birth."

*Chorus

Sacred infant, all divine,
what a tender love was thine,
thus to come from highest bliss
down to such a world as this!

*Chorus

Teach, O teach us, holy child,
by thy face so meek and milk,
teach us to resemble thee,
in thy sweet humility.

Oh, Happy Day (Part II)

Well, I made the brownies yesterday. They were not a complete flop but somewhat of a flop. I have some refining to do, namely, finding the right size pan. I'm not ditching this recipe yet because these brownies have potential to be so amazingly wonderful that I just can't give up on them. I've decided that I'm going to perfect them in January!

I, of course, had to have some of the batter. Okay, I ate more than I should have but I couldn't resist. Then, before I went to bed at midnight, I was putting them away and just had to cut into them and check 'em out. The middle was completely gooey but the edges were awesome. Chris and I were eating the edges and loving every bite it. As you can imagine, for me, it turned out to be one of those nights that I laid down and, boing, my eyes were wide open. I had so much cocoa coursing through my body that I couldn't go to sleep. I'm seriously hoping for a nap today.

Oh, Happy Day

I have a new brownie recipe that I have been dieing to make. I also can't wait to taste the batter! The recipe calls for superfine sugar which I have not been able to find here in the city of Little Rock. (In the back of my mind was an idea to grind granulated sugar in my blender making it fine but not sure if that's the way to go) My last resort was calling William Sonoma as soon as they opened. Matt answered the phone and helped me out~they do not carry it any longer. Ugh! Matt didn't let me down, though. He came to the rescue and, confirming my idea, he told me I could put granulated sugar in my blender and grind it. Huh, how do you like that, Matt has saved the brownies. Kudos to you, Matt! FYI, if you ever have to do this yourself, grind the sugar and then measure out the quantity you need. Can't wait to mix up brownies and taste batter!