Christmas Eve

This Christmas season we had a division we've never experienced before. For much of 2023, we've been in church transition. In the summer, we officially left the church we'd been at for about three years. Jozsef began a paid internship with the Youth Pastor of another church and the children spent the summer doing activites with Jozsef at that church. They had a blast! We already knew a couple of families there and we were getting to know a few more so we stayed on at that church thinking it might make a good new church home. However, by the fall, we had learned more about the church and how it was running and ultimately decided that we needed a different, and smaller environment. We found a great little church and have been working on transitioning into that community. This type of transiiton is tough to make over the holidays as many of regular aspects of the comuunity are off scedule and often on pause. However, the people of this new church have been very welcoming and we look forward to getting more involved with the new year.

The holidays were really nice at the our new location. The Worship Pastor set up an Advent schedule that provided for a different musical presentation each Sunday of Advent. For instance, one Sunday was a Blue Grass Worship while another was the Christmas Choir singing. It was a wonderful display of musical celebration. Jozsef was unable to attend much of the seasonal sessions because as a paid intern, he's tied to a different church. We knew this day may eventually come as his desire is for ministry. We tried to stay with him as long as we could, it was just time to part ways. Hopefully, one day in the future, we'll be in the same church home again, but for now, Jozsef has his primary church and we have ours (Nikolas has decided he prefers the smaller setting that we chose). We'll still have times when we are at Jozsef's church with him. We still very much appreciate the Youth Pastor he works with and we assist with certain activites while the children attend the event. And whenever he can, Jozsef steps aside from his regular and joins us at our little church for a different kind of experice and to be with us. Thus, Christmas Eve was our first split holiday. Jozsef worked the morning service at his church and then joined us in the evening for candlelight service. It was great to have him with us. Jozsef knows people in our little church too, so it was really nice for him to be able to catch up with them as well. Bethany spent the holidays with us also (she's claiming our little church as hers too and attends Sundays with Nikolas) so it was great to have the whole lot of us together. The service was packed and wonderful. The church was nicely decorated and they put out a wonderful finger foods spread for the congregants to enjoy. The worship was heartfelt and put everyone in readiness to celebrate our Savior's birth. We snagged a couple of photos just before the house was packed--truly, there was standing room only--and I"m glad we did because I really didn't get too many photos this holiday season.

After church, we returned to the house for a charcuterie dinner, the saran wrap game, the opening of one gift, and a movie to close out the night.

By then we were happy to turn in in anticipation of Christmas Day.