You find yourself saying the most unimaginably crazy things.

“No one shall use the phrase ‘Your mom’ as a snarky retort.”
(i.e. ‘oh yeah? your MOM hasn’t done her homework’)

“No one shall use that little-kid-teasing-somebody ‘na na na na naaah na’ tune for anything, ever.”

“No giving wedgies to anyone outside the family.”

“No using spaghetti as a weapon.”

Sigh.

Anyone have any crazy rules to add?

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a lawn… a red couch… our beautiful girl.

“dad, will you play legos with me?”
“sure!”

Hours later, kids are in bed.

The medium: legos.
The subject: production gear.
Always production gear.

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In the Bontrager house, the men of the family make dinner for the women on Valetine’s Day. This year, as always, it was deeeelicious.

Menu:
shrimp coctail
gouda
Martinelli’s sparkling apple juice

fresh greens salad with dried cranberries & walnuts
fondue: marinated steak & chicken in oil
linguine with pesto
green beans
garlic bread

chocolate covered strawberries
poundcake, ice cream, whipped cream

(although we still haven’t eaten the dessert)

ahhh….

Maize High School vocal music students will perform the musical
“Children of Eden”
January 15-16, 7:30pm
January 17, 3:00pm
Maize High School
11600 W. 45th Street North, Maize, KS

“Children of Eden” is a production by Stephen Schwartz (composer of Wicked).  Approximately 50 students and 16 children from the community are involved in the production. Three Maize alumni who have worked professionally in music theatre are also helping with the show:  Matt Udland (director, ‘Father’); Amy Baker (choreographer) and Jesse Warkentin (conductor).

Tickets are $7 for adults and $5 for students, and may be purchased at the door.

While your impression of high school musicals may not lead you to jump at this opportunity, let me just say that this school’s vocal music program is phenomenal, and they rarely perform entire musicals like this.  The story of this show is weighty, and the student performances are stunning.

If you come, be sure to look for a bobcat, an alligator, and a turtle that are doing an especially fine job.
The guy doing video backgrounds isn’t bad either.

photos by Justin Cary Photography

Occasionally he performs with mandolin player Jay Lapp as the Steel Wheels Duo.

Last fall, the Steel Wheels Duo embarked on the very successful Spokesong tour… via bicycle.

Take a few moments to glimpse behind the scenes of their tour…. guitars on bikes, hamstring stretches, and Haz Mat suits.  You get to see it all.

Trent Wagler / Steel Wheels music is available here, here, and here.

New album releases March 1, 2010.

Get it.

So naturally, in this Christmas season, our kids have asked if Sparky gets a stocking.

When Neil and I got married, we were given a set of Christmas stockings as a wedding present.  I thought it was a brilliant gift, because who thinks of Christmas decorations in July? And now forever and ever when I hang these stockings on the chimney with care, I will remember who gave them to us and that we’ve had them for our entire married life.

It occurred to me that I would very much want to continue the Christmas stocking hanging tradition when we added kids to our family, but I knew I would not be able to find the exact same ones we had been given.  This bothered my ‘all things in order’ head a bit, but I figured I could find stockings for kids that at least coordinate with ours.

Our daughter’s first Christmas brought the chance to start this all-important search. Not long after arriving at an attractive display of Christmas stockings, I realized the real question wasn’t ‘which ones’ but… ‘how many’?

Which is how I found myself in the Eddie Bauer Home store in December 1998, with our 8-month-old daughter in a stroller, debating how many kids we were going to bring into our family.

I was not having a conversation with my husband about this; I was in the store making this huge decision based solely on the need for a set of uniform Christmas stockings to be used in our family for all time.  Because you have to buy them all at once if they’re going to look the same, right? Because you can’t count on the same stockings being sold every year, or even the same store being there, right? (Eddie Bauer Home?)

So I deliberated and frowned and eventually bought three matching stockings and stocking hangers, thus arbitrarily declaring that we, Neil and Kim Bontrager, would have three kids.

Fast forward a few years and we find ourselves with two great kids and circumstances that have declared it to be so. We love our kids, we are not at all discontent with our family.  But we DO have an extra stocking.

And now we have a dog.

So, while the original question might have been ‘does the dog get a stocking?’, now we have moved on to ‘does the dog get the ‘third kid’ stocking?’.  Because…wow. I don’t know how I feel about that. What are the social implications, both for the kids AND the dog?

It’s possible I’m overthinking this.

But I don’t think so.

So, taking votes. What should I do?

Tonight our family took a moment … sitting, reading, lighting candles….
generally breathing a bit.
I highly recommend.

read this week’s thoughts with us
read week 1 & 2
the history of our family advent readings

If you’ve read this post, this this post is going to seem ironic.
I’m ok with that, I just thought you should be warned.

A few years ago, it occurred to me that it would be good to try to bring a bit of structure to how our family gathers itself around the meaning of Christmas. In this season, my work life is completely consumed with creating opportunities for our church to collide with the truth of Jesus’ birth. How hard could it be to do that for our family?

*pause*

So I wrote up a set of ‘readings’ for our family to do together around our own Advent wreath & candles. The voice of Shiny Happy Idealism in my head had me convinced that we could do this together every night during Advent.

(bwahahahaha-ha!!! ohhhh my….)

Over time we have gradually changed what we’re reading together, and I am now ok with what we are able to do within our real life schedule.  This year, we are completely re-writing everything.  Our son is now quite a good reader, and deserves his own lines.  Plus we want to keep bringing everything back to the ‘why’.  WHY did God send Jesus here?  Why?

Last night was our first time to read together. We turned off most of the lights, gathered around a table, and sat… reading… listening…. watching.   Click here to see what we read.

You’ll notice some pencil edits…. ‘week 1′ had to become ‘week 1 AND 2′, since we just didn’t get to it in time.
(Oh, and there is not yet a ‘week 3′ or ‘week 4′. I’m hoping by sharing this with you, I’ll be publicly motivated to get it done.)

Our kids seem to really love these little moments.  Our son loves that he can read his part by himself AND we let him use a lighter. Our daughter seems to really thrive the discipline of quiet, even though, as an 11 year old, it’s not normally something she sets up for herself.  I hope this is a tradition we can keep alive… and that makes a difference for them.

So tell me. What traditions keep the meaning of Christmas tangible for you?

the preferred turkey method for this year’s Wagler/Bontrager collaboration: frying
mom’s beautiful table
what the men do when the turkey’s frying
the kids playing
turkey turkey turkey
pie pie pie
downside to frying
what the men do during clean-up. :)

It has been a great day.
Thankful.

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