Category: Christmas

Posted in Christmas, crafts, creativity

Christmas crafts

Posted on by William Douthwaite

We had three granddaughters at our house three days before Christmas. Along with Christmas music in the background, cookies to eat, and a viewing of “The Star,” I helped them with some construction paper projects. All we needed was a stack of construction paper, three glue sticks, and a pair of scissors (for me).

All three were well versed in arts and crafts, and glued circle, square, diamond, crescent, and heart-shaped ornaments on their trees as fast as I could cut them out. They added tinsel (what I call garland), a star, and a tree trunk. The project didn’t use up as much time as I imagined, so it was on to a homemade nativity.

A baby Jesus in a manger, Mary, Joseph, and an angel soon occupied a stable topped by a bright star. Happy faces all around made it a very, merry, Christmas!

One granddaughter is very organized, grouping all her ornaments by color on her tree. According to another, you cannot have too much tinsel. Even the two-year old skillfully glued ornaments on her tree with an eye for design. But she decided to play dress up when we started on the nativity project.

I love these analog moments in a mostly digital world. The memories and impact last beyond the moment in the hearts and minds of both old and young alike. What a great reminder that our Lord was more than an idea, but a person complete with a voice, little hands, and a smile.

Posted in Christmas

A few baby Jesus sightings

Posted on by William Douthwaite

I received seven Christmas cards this year. (Yes, I know one is technically an Epiphany card.) Forty-three percent (three out of seven) include the baby Jesus, an increase from previous years. Two circle around the gift of a Savior, but don’t quite land the plane. And nothing embraces peace like a bundled up snowman, right?

The above photo doesn’t include the two family photo postcards we received. Two of the cards did include lengthy newsletters. One of the cards was from a family I don’t think ever sent one before.

Supposedly, Americans are still sending Christmas cards. Google AI says 1.3 billion cards are sent each year. Wow. Just wow. The average household sends twenty-eight cards. We’re below average in this category. We sent out none this year.

Perhaps the number of cards received is a response to how many cards were sent. Maybe I’ll do some research next year. If I send out my cards right after Thanksgiving, will I receive more in return?

And you know mine will include a baby Jesus.

Posted in Christmas

My 2025 gallery of Christmas yard art

Posted on by William Douthwaite

Here’s this year’s collection of Christmas yard decorations in my neighborhood.

Nativity

From inflatables to cut-outs to full figurines, the Lord was well represented this year.

Snowmen

I love seeing snowmen in Florida. Ironically, they wear hats, scarves, and gloves, as if snowmen could get cold.

Santa

I believe Santa’s popularity has waned in recent years. He’s still a mainstay, but has to share lawn space with a lot of other characters.

The Grinch

Candy Canes

I walked by many “candy cane farms” this year. For a season they replace driveway and landscape lights.

Lights

Of course there are plenty of lights. New designs include dripping icicles, programmable strings of LEDs, and red and green floodlights.

Miscellaneous

A Christmas unicorn?
When pigs fly…
Florida!
Getting a jump on Easter
Minimalist Christmas

Anything with a Santa hat is now part of the Christmas landscape. From turtles to flamingoes, pigs to dinosaurs, all are welcome to join the cast. As long as you have a storage unit for the other ten months of the year.

Posted in Christmas, Jesus, Through the Bible Devotions

It’s that time of year…

Posted on by William Douthwaite

This blue and white display caught my eye as I zipped through my mostly red and green Publix yesterday. Even though Chanukah (Hanukkah?) is almost over, there’s still plenty of holiday merch on these shelves. Must haves include menorahs, games, dreidels, straws, stickers, and potholders.

But my favorite item is the box of eight milk chocolate Macabbees. Not as many as the twenty-four piece chocolate Advent calendar, but more than a typical box of chocolate Santas.

The Maccabees were Jewish freedom fighters before the birth of Jesus Christ. Their revolt against the Seleucid empire secured freedom for the nation. They rededicated the temple in Jerusalem and reestablished Jewish worship in 164 BC. Hanukkah is the eight-day celebration of that event.

Spoiler alert: Most of “Christmas” revolves around fictional characters (Santa, Frosty, the Grinch, Rudolph, Jack Skellington, Buddy the elf, Mickey and Minnie Mouse). Hanukkah is the real deal, honoring those through whom God would send a Savior, who is the real deal of Christmas. (Oh, and yes, you can buy a chocolate nativity.)

When I went to college, many of my friends were Jewish. Cliff taught me this little jingle:

“I had a little dreidel, I made it out of clay; And with my little dreidel, I lost ten bucks today.”

The only Hanukkah light display in my neighborhood.
Posted in advent, Christmas

I guess he’s not enough

Posted on by William Douthwaite

Isn’t that a nice nativity inflatable?

It’s simple and humble. I’ve seen several like this around my neighborhood. Christ is making a comeback in the annual yard decorations of Christmas.

But wait. There’s more. Let me pan out just a bit.

For some reason, the Lord just wasn’t enough. These folks had to add the ever-popular Santa-hatted snowman and French bulldog.

Don’t get me wrong. I love dogs. And I love snowmen who wear hats, gloves, and scarves. I was old before I learned that snowmen get cold, even in Florida.

In scripture Jesus humbled himself and in our world, Jesus continues down that road of humility, taking a back seat to the Grinch, Santa, penguins, snowmen, angels, wiener dogs, Mickey and Minnie, and anyone else who dons a red hat on his birthday.

That’s what God looks like.

That’s what love looks like.

The big dog and I have accumulated a collection of Christmas lights and inflatables from our morning and evening walks. You can look forward to that post and our commentary on Christmas 2025.

Posted in Christmas

Let’s do it. Let’s send out some Christmas cards.

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

“Hey, thanks for your Christmas card. It was really great reading about your year.”

Two people said that to me yesterday. But in the past few weeks, as classes and meetings and activities have resumed, I’ve heard it from three other families. I had no idea that a Christmas card, along with a simple one page letter about our 2023, would bring a grateful response.

This past Christmas was the first time in seven years that my wife and I sent out cards at all. Back in the nineties, before social media, we sent out about forty or so each year, and received at least as many. It was the way to keep up with family and friends in the places where we had lived.

In time, the amount of cards decreased. If we hadn’t heard from someone for three or four years, we dropped them from the list. As our list of friends on Facebook grew, we already knew what was going on in everyone’s life, so a Christmas letter was redundant. Emailed cards and greetings replaces those delivered by the mailman. Our mailing list shrunk until we finally concluded, “Let’s not.”

This past year we met a lot of new people and made a lot of new friends. We wanted to and needed to strengthen our connection with them. However, we’ve retreated from the advertisement-ridden, spam-filled, and bot-controlled social media world. “Let’s do it. Let’s send out Christmas cards this year.” So what if we had only gotten about two-dozen this year? So what if we would send out a variety of left-over cards from years gone by? So what if first class postage costs a whopping $.66? We’ll enclose an illustrated letter about our year and see what happens.

Of the cards we received this year, only contained had a newsletter. It was three narrow-margin pages of single-space, small-font prose, with a blurry photo collage on the fourth side. It was the epitome of TL;DR (too long; didn’t read). I was in charge of the letter, so I was sure to include lots of white space, a few high res pictures, and the facts, just the facts.

Next we had to assemble our mailing list. We had very few. Some we could look up online. But most name and address searches want your money before they will give names and addresses. My wife sent off a few emails to the right people, and we got all the info we needed.

When we had them all addressed and ready to go, I waited in line at the post office for about twenty minutes to get some Christmas-y looking stamps. We got them in the mail on the last day for delivery before Christmas. Mission accomplished.

We’re thankful for this chance to cultivate new and old relationships. (Oh, and by the way, we send out cards with baby Jesus on them. Just sayin’.)

Posted in Christmas

Be the Christmas card

Posted on by William Douthwaite

Yesterday, I took down and packed away the Christmas tree, decorations, lights, and other Christmas-y knick-knacks. Before tossing them, I glanced through this year’s stack of Christmas cards and noticed, as I usually do, the conspicuous absence of Jesus. Two of the twenty cards we received portrayed the infant Jesus. One made a reference to “him,” as in, “O Come Let Us Adore Him.” The rest were picture collages of families.

I’ve written about this before in my posts “I got more religious cards this year,” “Uh-oh. Jesus seems to be missing,” and “Would you send a secular Christmas card to your pastor?”

As I reflected on this year’s mail, I realized that these really aren’t Christmas cards. The photos show how much the family has grown. More detailed letters list the year’s adventures, joys, and blessings. They are annual reports. And that’s OK.

We sent out letters in cards this year for the first time since I don’t know when. Everyone’s life was displayed on social media, so annual reports seemed redundant. But we’ve got a lot of new friends, we’re spending a lot less time on social media, and we want to cultivate connections in our retirement years, so we got them all in the mail just in time for Christmas.

Anyway, the place you want the world to see Jesus isn’t on the front of a card (or a billboard, a bumper sticker, or t-shirt). Since we have “put on Christ,” others will see him in the way we act and speak, in the way that we treat and help others, and when we forgive. Don’t send a Jesus-Christmas card. Be the Jesus-Christmas card!

Posted in Christmas, noticing

Look who showed up

Posted on by William Douthwaite

The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon is also called the frequency illusion or recency bias. It’s a label for those times in life when something you’ve learned or talked about suddenly shows up everywhere.

For example, let’s say you’ve been talking with your about buying a new car. When you’re driving to work the next day, every other car on the road seems to be the make and model you discussed.

Or, you’ve been debating whether or not to get a smart watch. You stop by the store and it seems like everyone has one on their wrist.

How about when you learn a new word, and suddenly you notice it everywhere? It’s in the books and articles you read. It’s pops up in conversations.

One person you’ll see a lot of in December is Santa Claus. Though he faces stiff competition from the Grinch and other wintery characters, he’s the guy everyone wants to see on the float at the end of parade.

So I’m sitting in bible class at my son’s church last Sunday. I glance over and see this guy sitting there. My wife just rolled her eyes when I leaned over and said, “Look who’s here!” I don’t blame him for looking tired. He’s got his work cut out for him each Christmas Eve. After the worship service prelude, he sat down and played a beautiful arrangement of “Joy to the World.”

Speaking of Christmas Eve, I sat behind a gentleman at the candlelight service. He also had a long, bushy white beard and longish gray hair tied back in a pony tail. I leaned over the said to my daughter, “Isn’t he supposed to be working tonight?” She giggled and an elbow to my side made me straighten up for the rest of the service.

I like to imagine Santa doing everyday things between Christmases. I hope he gets to go out for supper and try new cuisine, get to some sporting events and concerts, and a movie.

Keep an eye out. I’ll bet you start seeing him more often now!

Posted in Christmas, Travel

Holiday at the Arboretum

Posted on by William Douthwaite

Last Friday night, we went to the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Gardens with our Texas family. It was chilly, but we really enjoyed the seasonal “Holiday at the Arboretum.”

From what I could see, every tree in the arboretum was wrapped in lights. A Christmas village featured little shops for kids to visit and get treats. The twelve days of Christmas were displayed in gazebos along the garden walkway. Lights on the giant Christmas tree flashed colors and shapes in time with music.

I can’t even imagine what it takes to prepare the gardens for this event. I do remember people hanging lights and setting up gazebos when we were there for the pumpkin displays in October.

The youngest Texas grandchild belts out, “Five golden rings…” about once an hour. All the kids were excited to see the larger-than-life gifts from the song.

My wise son and his wife brought along thermoses of hot chocolate and tea. The Arboretum had vendors charging $8 for a small cup of tea or cider. Yikes! But the weather was cold so the line was long.

It was a great family outing and a great way to continue our Christmas celebration.