Matt and I were fortunate enough to find a church in Wash Park that we've really grown to love. We've met new friends and more importantly been very challenged by the sermons and principles of the church. A few Sundays before Christmas, we had a guest speaker talk about the role of consumerism not only in our lives, but in our faiths... and Matt and I were both extremely moved. I don't think anyone can deny how materialistic we all are (though blessed as we may be), and it was truly challenging to hear the words of someone who lives a much simpler life. (If you're interested in the awesome teaching, you can find the podcast from Dec 13th here.) We decided to try to focus a bit more on the true meaning of the Christmas season and a bit less on the "gifts" that we were so obsessed with buying for others. I think we'll always be easily distracted by "things", but it was nice to know we were able to give "gifts" to others by bringing joy to the less fortunate near and far. As is always true in my life: baby steps.
Matt played piano at church on Christmas Eve, which admittedly, I had been a little perturbed about since we were supposed to have dinner with my mom that night. But, as usually happens, God totally put me in my place when my mom, her husband, and my half brother joined us for the service, and my mom and stepdad (who usually are what I'd probably call deists and don't care much for Christianity) were dancing with joy to the music and singing so loudly to the Christmas hymns that they nearly lost their voices! It was my small Christmas miracle. :) We came home as a family to what I hope will be one of our own new traditions: my mom made her amazing, homemade enchiladas, we drank some wine, talked and laughed, and watched some of a Charlie Brown Christmas (I think I napped at that point). But most importantly, we were all together in our new home, which was filled with a lot of love that night.
We also spent Christmas with my dad, stepmom, and some of her family which was fun as well. The dynamics there are still a work in progress, so, hopefully I'll have more to report next year :) Unfortunately, the one birthday tradition that I was looking forward to (biscuits and gravy!) was missed. But that's ok... for my waistline. ;)
Thankfully a few old friends were in town (they must be old, because we celebrated our TEN year high school reunion this past summer... yikes), so we had them over for drinks. So great to see everyone, I hope we can always keep up these visits, no matter where life takes us.
New Year's Eve came much too quickly, as I was certainly not ready to go back to work (that's an entirely different blog). But, in one short three day weekend, Matt and I really started to feel like things were truly coming together for us here in Denver. We felt so much more at home as finally there was no shortage of things to do! We spent New Year's Eve with some awesome new friends (which we are so much more grateful for than we could write in a blog), and visited a few other friends over the weekend. We also caught Avatar at the Imax (in 3D of course) with Zach and Casey. Pretty sweet. Overall, we're definitely looking forward to the coming year!
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