My Last Christmas and Birthday Photos

The Wise Men in the Living Room





















The Manger on the Buffet (side board, for we Brits).






















Side Board complete with Birthday Cards (16 of them!)




















My Birthday/Christmas Gift
A fountain spouting just enough water to flow over the globe
and doesn't make enough noise to attract Bailey.


























'Nuff Said!

This Just about Says it All!!

I don't believe this is really me and I don't believe I have actually reached 70. But my body tells me so!
Actually, I guess my brain should tell me so too. In the process of typing this up and checking it, I ran the mouse over the black cat in the side bar on this page. It meowed as it's supposed to do and I'm looking all around for Bailey saying "Where are you?" "What's the matter?" Then it suddenly dawned on me what I'd done!

























My family bugged me about having a birthday cake -- note it is store bought, -- and so far we've had so much other stuff, we haven't touched it. My husband bugged me about taking a photo of how many birthday cards I got. Finally, to keep them quiet I submitted to this photo. I think that is a look of resignation on my face.


This is one of my favorite presents. Really unusual! A candle that when put in its chimney, gives off a very beautiful, flickering, rainbow-colored hologram.

Sobering Thought

For some time now, when anyone asked me what I wanted for my 70th birthday --(today)-- I've only half jokingly said, "to pet a tiger".

I just watched the 11 o'clock news tonight and heard about three men in the San Francisco Zoo who were mauled by a tiger today. Actually one of them died. The pictures were not pretty. I had even gone so far as to e mail Shambala to see if they ever allowed anyone to pet their tigers. Of course they said no, in a very gracious way. I think the Lord is trying to tell me something! I do love animals of all kinds, but wild animals are wild and who am I to think I have a special connection with His wild animals? That this should happen today on the very day I was secretly hoping my family might somehow have arranged this and I would find an invitation in an envelope for me, is somehow a rebuke to me. God has set His natural laws in place and I must abide by them and be satisfied.

But I did have a great birthday and a wonderful Christmas with many birthday cards and wonderful gifts. More of this in another post. And.... I have the Greatest Gift.

LATER
Please check the comments for this post, in case you misunderstood my thinking here.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

A special Merry Christmas to:

Wanda, Mrs. Nesbitt, Rosa, Sandy and Martyn, the Three Ginger Darlings, Andrew Lockhart, Abraham Lincoln, 'By His Grace Alone', 'Petunia's Gardener' Meeyaw, The Daily Kitten and a whole host of others who brighten my day when I read their blogs.

(I decided I was tired of red and green, so went with blue.)

JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON

I recently heard it put a little differently:
"WE are the reason for the season!" Of course that's true, because it was for us He came, for us He died, for us He gives eternal life, and this for all who believe.
Because of this we can sing of a blessed, happy and hopeful Christmas.

Our Christmas Tree 2007

Christmas in the Nineties

Cars and people, slush and mud,

Puddles, splashes, rain and snow.

Noise and bustle, laughs and tears.

Christmas music, mistletoe.

Merchants worry, mothers anxious.

Children restless – time goes slow.

Frosty, Santa, Rudolph, Grinch,

TV specials –ice skate shows.

Wrapping paper, Christmas trees

Glasses filled with cheer o’erflow.

Gifts are opened, stomachs filled.

Where did such excitement go?

Where’s the wonder, peace and awe?

Where’s the time o’er which to pore

The mighty miracle of God made man;

The God-man given, life, death to span.

Mistaken jubilation,

His birth to celebrate

Without a thought of cost, rejection,

Spawning death and hate!

Christ’s mass, so sweet and merry –-

For Christ, penurious stall;

Inevitable step moves on

T’wards Herod’s Judgment Hall.

Rejoice! Ah yes, with reason!

Birth, death, are intertwined.

True Christmas celebration sings,

For Easter is behind.

Empty Christmas preparation

If all unknown His resurrection!

Copyright: Christine A. Jones 2007

This photo was taken in Kauai a couple of weeks ago -- a real live Poinsettia bush.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM MY 'FAMILY'
(Real Christmas Greetings coming Soon)

Disturbed Days at Our House.

Henrietta has been quiet the last couple of days. Yesterday we had the gardeners come in to finish "thinning" out the yard, so she hid among the bushes most of the afternoon, though she did come out to be fed! Bailey too has not been happy. He doesn't like strangers in his yard. Then today we had to move furniture around because the carpet cleaners came. Bailey disappeared upstairs on to "his" bed (in the spare bedroom) and now doesn't like the fans we have going to help dry the carpet.























Above is a photo I took the other day, of a creature which Bailey alerted me to at about midnight. It was just running round and round in circles around the flower pot. It was going round so fast, I took more than 10 pictures before I got this one. It has a rat's tail, but I thought it was too short for a rat and its nose wasn't sharp like a rat. It was more blunt and its fur was more like the scruffy look of a hamster. It was about 4" long. I watched it for at least ten minutes, and as you can see Bailey was very interested. Eventually it swirled its way to the back of the patio and followed the wall into the bushes. I'm thinking it may have been a baby and was therefore blind and that's why it was going in circles -- very fast. Also it may have been a tree rat which I'm not sure how to identify. But then yesterday the garden men found a gopher's home back up in the corner where all the thick brush had been. But do baby gophers have rat-like tails? Or maybe it was a ground squirrel or is that the same as a gopher? Haven't had time to look all this up on the internet. We're steadily trying to get ready for Christmas, but Barry has had a really bad cold and hasn't felt like doing much. But we'll get there...eventually.