March Forth! Marssige Edasi!

There is a beautiful light dusting of snow here in Tartu, and every tree is covered with frost as if it had been spray painted. Even the sky is totally white! (I think it's ironic that they call the summer "white nights" when it is in winter that the sky is white all the time, hardly ever blue.)

It is Peter's first Christmas! He has a bit of a cold, but he is having a lot of fun with all the excitement from Chris and Elizabeth, even if he doesn't quite know what they're on about. And of course, it is fun to get new toys!

My favorite gift is an outfit that my mother gave to Peter. It has the word "camp" on it, with a pine tree and a campfire. A reminder of Maine.

Chris is quite excited about all the music CDs he has received. Elizabeth is excited about everything, especially stickers and the Stickerizer!

Tonight we will pray for my baby sister Katherine.
"Isn't her younger sister more attractive?" (Judges 15:2)

Last night we attended Christmas Eve service at Salem Baptist Church, just down the street from our house (at Kalevi 66, we are at Kalevi 90). We were able to give away the last of our Christmas presents from the Salvation Army Sweden & Latvia Territory to a family with 11 children. We had only 11 gifts left after giving 80 to the Noortekodu and several to a missionary friend to distribute in Elva. We were thankful to God for our friends who told us about this family, as we did not want to have any gifts left over!

Then we came home and watched "The Snowman" on TV and had ham & pineapple for supper. (We were going to go to our favorite restaurant to have lasagne, my family's traditional Christmas Eve food, but it was closed! Even the movie theater was closed on Christmas Eve; it is a bigger holiday than Christmas in Estonia.) Later we watched "The Grinch" before putting out milk & cookies for Santa and also sprinkling Magic Reindeer Food out the window.

Today is Captain Dan Henderson's birthday.

One of the first things I thought of this morning was that my mother always played this record first thing on Christmas Day:
The real meaning of Christmas
Is the giving of love everyday
The real meaning of Christmas
Is to give as the Master, they say.
And when you’re giving your presents
Don’t forget as you give them away,
That the real meaning of Christmas,
Is the giving of love everyday.

Evelyn