No Santa=No Fun? No WAY!!

Some of those who visit my blog may know that in my family we don't do the Santa Claus thing for Christmas. I've taken some criticism about this. People think that I'm sucking all the fun out of Christmas for my two little boys. Well, I'm going to set the record straight! We have plenty of fun on Christmas, and I thought I'd tell you exactly what we did this year to prove it!

We started out our Christmas season by decorating our tree. Actually, I decided a tree was too dangerous (it might tip over). After racking my brain for a replacement, I pulled a nice, soft pillow off of my son's bed and laid it in the floor. Voila! The christmas pillow! We then started decorating it our beloved pillow. First we got out the lights, but I decided that plugging it in was too much of a shock hazard. Still the christmas pillow looked quite lovely with the little bulbs wrapped around it. Suddenly I realized that those pretty bulbs were easily breakable, so they had to go too. As I was plucking all of the bulbs out of their little sockets, I noticed that the chord was still a choking hazard. What if one of my sons got that wrapped his neck? I couldn't take that chance, so I threw the chord away too.

Next we brought out the ornaments. The first box was full of glass ornaments, which I of course vetoed. My oldest son (three years old) helped me put them in the trash compacter. Oh, you should've seen the tears of joy streaming down his cheeks as I threw the brightly colored balls and figurines of Santa and Frosty in the trash to be crushed. He was so happy!

The next box contained the plaster handprints my boys had made. Now, everyone realizes what kind of breathing trouble plaster dust can cause, so I bagged those suckers up in a sandwich bag on the double. Then, wearing a surgical mask of course, I backed over them with my car. I sucked up any escaping dust with a shop-vac. Threat eliminated.

I came back inside the house to behold a wonderous sight. There was my whole family staring at our Christmas pillow and weeping. I have never been more proud.

My wife looked at me, pointed to our christmas pillow and said, "What are we supposed to do with this!?!" Then she hurried back to our bedroom for some unknown reason. I pondered her question for about a half hour with no results. Finally, an epiphany!! I knew what to do with our christmas pillow.

My wife emerged from our room, picked up our boys and headed toward the door.

"Sweetheart," I said, "I know what to do with our christmas pillow!!"

"SIT ON IT!!" she screamed as she slammed the door in my face.

And by golly, she was right! That was my idea! She always seemed to be a step ahead of me!

So there I was, by myself with the christmas pillow. I guess my wife and the boys went out for more wrapping paper or something. She should be back any day now...

I've Been a Long Time Away, Let's Talk

It's been over a month since I posted anything here, and it's been even longer on the apologetics blog. I guess it was partly because I was wrapping up my second to last semester at Tri-State Bible College, and partly because I didn't have much to say. Or maybe I just didn't feel like saying anything. Either way, I'm back to blogging. At least I'll get one post in for the month of December!

As I said, I have finished another semester at Tri-State Bible College. Come next June I will officially be a college degreed individual. I must say I'm more excited than I thought I'd be. I guess it's because I've been an undergrad for about TEN YEARS now. It hurts to think about that. Still, I wouldn't change much if I had to do it over again. Indeed, what would I change? I certainly wouldn't change my wonderful marriage (five years have flown by!), nor would I change our decision to have children (two beautiful boys!). A family makes a full time job necessary, so I wouldn't change that decision either. Add to that the fact that God has been shaping me for this entire decade, and I don't see many things I would change at all. I can see how every memorable experience has been valuable in shaping me spiritually.

After that, it's on to seminary at Covenant in St. Louis. I'm excited. The community was great on our visit, and the class I attended was thought provoking. This is probably rehashing some of what I wrote in my last post, though, so I'll move on.

I have a few other things I would like to write about here, so they should be showing up shortly. One, Mary Ann and I saw the Chronicles of Narnia this past weekend so I'd like to talk about that. That might have some apologetic impact, so I might post it on the other blog. The other is on the ever-churning Santa Claus controversy. As Christians, should we tell our kids that Santa is real? I might try to post on that today while I'm in the mood to blog.

Let's see, what else...

Check out Steve Camp's blog for a post on John Owen. Reading about this great man of God moved me today. I particularly love this sentence: "His primary motivation was the growth in holiness of his flock." Most pastors today would say, of course, mine is too! And in a way it is. But for Owen and so many other Puritans this dominated their lives. Not church growth, not cultural relevance, but holiness. The means to getting their flocks to the destination? The Bible. The very Word of God. We are too focused on being like the surrounding culture in order to attract it, in my opinion. I focus on this because of the painful lack of holiness in my own life.

In closing, some prayer requests:

We are running low on funds at this time of the year, so pray that we would be wise with our money and faithful to Christ amidst any arising difficulty.

We are also trying to sell our house in preparation for the move to St. Louis. Pray that we are able to do so quickly. If you know anyone who wants to move into the Huntington, WV area, let me know! I might post some pictures of the house a little later.

Talk to you soon!