Sorry, but not sorry.

Because the truth is, while this tea is amazing around the holidays–and it makes such a nice holiday gift!–it is one I love sipping as soon as the temperatures drop in the fall, right through spring. Heck, I’ve even been known to have a mug full of this tea in July–yep, Christmas in July.

Make the best Christmas tea

The base of this tea is made up of best black tea and the naturally-sweet unique flavor of rooibos. When you compliment those with the joy of peppermint, you absolutely can’t go wrong. Especially for holiday get togethers and long nights spent sipping in front of a crackling fire.

Which black tea is most popular?

I did choose one of the worlds most popular black teas for this Christmas tea blend–Assam. It holds a high spot on my list of all-time favorite teas. When you think of your favorite rich breakfast teas, most likely they contain assam. It’s a bold, strong, slightly malty black tea that is named after the region in India where it is grown. It’s even a gorgeous almost-black-red color. Combined with the naturally red rooibos tea in this blend, it’s truly as beautiful as it is delicious.

What is the most loved tea in the world?

According to the World Tea Export Council–and they should know–the most loved tea in the world is black tea. So much so that black tea makes up about 75% of the world’s total tea consumption. Green tea comes in at 20% and herbal and oolong make up the rest… about 5%. (source)

So this amazing Christmas tea blend includes one of the most well-known and popular teas (Assam) in the most popular category of tea (black) along with, in my opinion, two of the best herbal options you will find anywhere (rooibos and mint). I call it “Holiday Warmth” and I think you’re going to love it.

But you’re not going to want to just whip this up for yourself. You’ll probably think of quite a few friends, relatives, neighbors, and others who would love a gift of this Holiday Warmth Tea this year. So I have some gift-giving ideas for you too. Keep reading.

What are some great homemade tea blends for Christmas gift giving?

You can’t go wrong with this Christmas tea blend as a gift, since it’s made of some of the most popular flavors in the world. But there are plenty of choices if you want a variety of options for gift giving.

If the recipient is a coffee fan but trying to cut out the caffeine, make them this delicious tea that tastes like coffee blend.

If they’re a fan of Lipton tea bags but you’d like them to start enjoying a much healthier option, without pesticides lacing the tea leaves or without bags whitened with bleach, this black tea blend would be the perfect gift.

Mix up some tea, fill a small mason jar, add a great flip lid (buy the 4 pack for less than the price of 3 and gift teas to four friends) or a nice stainless steel lid option,  and a simple twine bow. Toss in a stainless steel strainer for a mug, a quart jar strainer (my favorite), and a simple tea spoon and you will have a thoughtful homemade gift in only minutes that will be treasured for a long time to come.

While it’s very fun to grow some of my own ingredients for making homemade tea blends, I usually have to buy the black, green, or herbal teas I use to make my own blends. See my 8 top favorite teas right here.

Holiday Warmth Tea 

Yield: 1 pint jar of tea blend

INGREDIENTS

2⁄3 cup black tea (I use this blend that tastes like Lipton)

2⁄3 cup rooibos tea

2⁄3 cup dried peppermint leaves

DIRECTIONS

• Combine the three ingredients in a clean, dry jar.
• Add lid and shake to combine.
• Steep 1 TB in 16 oz of hot water for 2-3 minutes.
• Add sweetener if desired & enjoy.

Notes for making the best Christmas tea

• Optional: add 2 tsp vanilla bean powder for a nice variation.
• If you grow your own mint, feel free to use any variety of all, but my personal favorites for this tea blend are Chocolate Mint and Orange Mint.
• If you’re giving your blend as a gift, attach a small card that gives these instructions: “Steep 1 TB of tea in 16 oz of hot water for 2-3 minutes. Remove tea. Add sweetener, if desired. Enjoy!”

More tea blends you’ll love

The best black blend (it tastes like Lipton)

A homemade healthy tea that tastes like coffee

Raspberry leaf tea (my favorite immunitTEA to fight off colds)

8 of my favorite tea blends

The post Make the best Christmas tea first appeared on Souly Rested.

“Christmas Crack” meets both demands very well.

And man is this stuff good.

Hayley and Cai just whipped some up and I am suddenly very happy.

They crushed up a few candy canes and sprinkled the crumbs on top of the Chocolate Christmas Crackers and I have to say, I approve. Now if I can just convince myself to not eat them all when the kids aren’t looking…

Also, we love to substitute maple sugar for the brown sugar and make Chocolate Maple Crackers (covered in maple sprinkles, of course).

Go here for how to make your own maple sugar.

Talk to me!

If you have any questions, leave a comment below. And please tag me on ig to show me your chocolate-covered deliciousness @souly.rested.

More recipes & inspiration:

The Best Cut-out Cookies Ever

6 Tips for a Simple Farmhouse Christmas

Making a Gingerbread Replica of Your Home

Pin this for later!

Click on the image below to pin this post.

Find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018 and then one of the Top Homesteading Blogs of 2019 as well.

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

 

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

The post Christmas Crackers first appeared on Souly Rested.

Our Church Building

While you know we live in an old farmhouse that was built in 1800, I haven’t shared much about our church building. It was built not too long after our old house, and it’s melodious bells have been chiming out the hour and half hour throughout our small, one-street town for well over a century.

I share a little insight about our church here, where I explain my multiple sources of income (on of which is a brick-and-mortar job, working as the pastor’s assistant) that help keep our homestead and sugarbush running.

Our church has long outgrown the sweet little historic building we meet in.

One thing I didn’t know when moving here 6 years ago? New England is a mission field. There are so few churches that preach true joy and hope from the infallible Word of God like folks hear coming out of our pulpit every Sunday. Yet New Englanders are ripe for hearing this joy known as the gospel.

Many families drive from over an hour away every Sunday.

So we’re working hard to bring as many folks in as will come, and we are also working hard at raising money to purchase a new-to-us building that will allow us to deepen our impact and welcome more in our pews every week.

Go here if you feel God leading you to help us reach more with the Good News here in New England.

Since this will, hopefully, be the last Christmas we celebrate in this small historic building we are now renting, my daughters knew they wanted to memorialize it in gingerbread and candy.

I share my complete recipe and the tricks of the trade we’ve learned along the years on the best ways to make a gingerbread replica of your home, or other important building, below.

My Gingerbread Recipe

Icing Glue Recipe

This post contains affiliate links. Go here to read the full (ultra fun) legal disclosure about that.

10 Tips for Construction of a Gingerbread Replica of Your Home (or church)

1. If your design is rather intricate, start days ahead by cutting out cardboard and gluing or taping it together to make sure your plans and measurements are correct.
2. Use paper to trace your cardboard pieces you designed with and use that to actually cut out your gingerbread. Your cardboard pieces can be a rough idea but then use neatly cut paper for the real deal. It’s much easier to work with paper than cardboard to make your actual pattern; save the rest of your cardboard for your base to build your gingerbread building on, if it’s sturdy enough.
3. Be sure you’re not creating any pieces that are too big to fit on your biggest cookie sheet. Not that I’ve almost done that or anything.
4. Try out this free online help with sketching your building plans.
5. Your dough will seem really hard when you take it out of the fridge. It will most likely crack when you initially try to flatten it. Patience and muscle power will allow you to roll it out, and you’ll be amazed at how smooth the dough becomes after a little diligent rolling.
6. Try cutting the gingerbread dough with a pizza wheel for ultra smooth edges, plus it’s easier to use than a knife to trace your paper patterns.
7. After the dough is baked, you can still gently use a serrated knife, or even kitchen scissors, to cut baked pieces down to the shape or size you want, or to smooth out edges (if you don’t use a pizza wheel to cut them).
8. While you can use cutting boards, large platters, and more for a base to build on, nothing beats a sturdy piece of cardboard covered in aluminum foil.
9. You definitely want a way to pipe on your icing. This is my favorite cake decorating tool, but bags and tips like these work well too.
10. Create braces for your main walls with heavy cardboard that you cut to fit. This helps the walls stay in place until the icing has hardened.

Why I Love Seeing Kids Building with Gingerbread

I have always had two hurdles when trying to create something, I struggle with noticing details and I’ve always had difficulty understanding how to translate a 2-dimensional image into something 3-dimensional. For instance, sewing. I was never good at holding a pattern in my hand and figuring out how on earth I could turn that pattern into a real-life shirt or skirt or cute halloween costume.

Since studies have shown that in general it is more challenging for a female to see in 3D than a male, and given that I’m a homeschool mom of 4 girls, I was always looking for fun ways to foster this skill.

When the girls were young I tried hard to do any activity like nature journaling, and building with legos and mini robots, that would help them bridge that gap in their learning style.

Creating a gingerbread creation of something they cared about in real life was a fantastic way to do this. And tastier than sewing.

Plus, kids who grow up making a grand ole edible buildings time and again will still want to spend an afternoon doing it with mom, a decade later. Bonus.

Inspiration When Making a Gingerbread Replica of Your Home

SNOW: use confectioners sugar as snow on top of icing

TABLE CLOTH: for “sheets” of color, melt gummy bears and squish them flat (Warning, this does get very sticky!)

TILES: for any panes of color (we did this for our church’s stain glass panes) roll out jujufruits and/or tootsie rolls

STEPPING STONE PATH: slice tootsie rolls into individual stones to create a path

PEOPLE: I like these cookie cutters that allow you to choose the height for a person that is best proportionate to your house’s dimensions.

ANIMALS: This is our moose cookie cutter, in a set that includes another favorite animal around here. But these may be more up your alley.

ROOF SHINGLES: My absolute favorite shingles are made from overlapping rows of Necco wafers or giant circle sprinkles like the ones we used on our church

WREATHS:  I love these circular cookie cutters for cookies and biscuits and they work great for gingerbread wreaths, with so many sizes to choose from. We used the fluted sides of 3rd from the smallest (for the outer ridge of the wreaths) and the next smallest to cut out the center of the wreaths.

The list could go on and on, so please continue this list with YOUR ideas, in the comments.

Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. Psalm 127:1

Other Posts About Creating with Kids:

My Favorite Cookies EVER (and how my girls created a gift for me out of them)

The Easiest (Perfect) Graduation Party Ever

Teaching a Child to Make Pie (and my grandma’s pie crust recipe)

Making a Gingerbread Farm

Pin this for later!

Click on the image below to pin this post.

 

Find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018 and then one of the Top Homesteading Blogs of 2019 as well.

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

 

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

The post Making a Gingerbread Replica of Your Home first appeared on Souly Rested.

It’s all in the attitude, really. And the knowledge that Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy… but it’s worth it. For lots more on that topic, follow my podcast.

See my youtube video here on this same topic.

Enjoy a Simple Farmhouse Christmas

1. Keep it Fun

For us this year, our favorite way to enjoy all of our decorating and wrapping evenings is to put some old vinyl on our record player.

It was a gift from the girls last Christmas and I have thoroughly loved using it, but this Christmas season has been the best.

I pulled out my family’s records from my childhood and the girls love hearing a little bit of my childhood favorites, while they may not enjoy listening to me signing along (since I never could carry a tune).

A few simple ways to keep Christmas “chores” lighthearted and relaxing:

• Put on your favorite Christmas music.
• Light some candles.
• Start your decorating season early by bringing out the twinkle lights. Long winter evenings need more light, no?
• Make time for down time, maybe even treat yourself to a long quiet walk or a bubble bath before the part of the decorating that tends to stress you out.
• Take it to heart–and remind yourself often, if need be–it is totally okay that you are not martha stewart. No one expects you to be. In fact, I’d bet your home is much more inviting and cozy than Martha’s ever would be. It’s my theory that hers is too perfect to be comfortable.

2. Forage For Decorations

Winter is dark, and nights are long here in New England. We try to get outside and get fresh air during the warmest part of the afternoon whenever possible. Whether it’s a walk with Bixby, doing farm chores, or even something as ridiculous as ice skating in the marsh (yep, we’ve done that), we need the vitamin D and exercise.

Roaming the woods and foraging for decorations is maybe the best way to follow my first tip as well, because gathering treasures together is always fun.

A few ideas of great things to forage for and how to use them

* grape vines for wreath bases.

If you use them right away after clipping them, there’s no need to soak them to make them pliable. Just meticulously wind the vines into a circle, tucking in the ends and wrapping new vines on as you go, until you have a wreath the size you’d like it to be. Then tuck in and hot-glue on other treasures from your foraging…

* dried leaves for wreaths or vases.

We have a low-growing plant that is prolific in our marsh that is perfect for this. Hayley made a gorgeous wreath from just grape vines and those leaves this year.

We also filled some pottery pieces, mason jars, and wooden barrels with the dried plant. (We have plenty of it. It’s almost like a ground cover for our marsh.)

* evergreen for wreaths and swags.

Tuck branches in a grapevine wreath to fill it with green, or cut off 1-foot-long pieces of evergreen that you tie together with twine to create a swag for hanging over doorways, windows, or mantles. You can even just lay evergreen branches wherever it works for you. We have an old horse bridle holder that was salvaged from an old barn. I love that today it holds my grandad’s horse bridle. I tossed a whole branch over it and called that corner of our TV room decorated.

* pine cones.

To dry up the sometimes-gooey sap in the pinecones, and avoid any egg cases hatching unwanted critters in your home (it’s seriously happened to me), take a few minutes to bake your pine cones. Yes. Bake.

1. Preheat oven to 200°
2. Cover a cookie sheet with aluminum foil.
3. Lay pinecones on the foil, in a single layer.
4. Bake for 1/2 hour.

3. Keep the Tree Simple (Sometimes)

This year our tree is super simple. Okay, kinda short and scrawny. Okay, a full-blown Charlie Brown tree.

How we arranged our simple tree

To get the Charlie Brown tree to stay upright took a little finagling, but it just required a few things…

• vase (or I used a 1/2 gallon Mason jar)
• old towels
• masking tape
• a base container

I used Bill’s grandmom’s 6-gallon fermenting crock for my base, but an old wooden barrel or upright box would work great too.

1. I placed the Mason jar, filled with water, in the center of the crock.
2. I surrounded the water jar with 3-4 old towels, to keep it centered and cushion the blow if the tree took a tumble.
3. Then I laid down strips of masking tape in X’s around the base of the tree, attached to the rim of the crock.
4. Finally I arranged another old towel (but it could be a pretty piece of fabric too or even an odd piece of clothing) to cover the tape.

But I’m not saying you need to go full-blown Charlie Brown to keep it simple with the tree this year. Instead, consider doing a simple theme of all homemade ornaments or dried forage items, like dried oranges and berries and pinecones. If nothing else, consider not pulling out all the usual boxes of typical ornaments. Make this year’s tree different in some way, more simple.

Of course I realize, full well, that “simple” almost never means “easier.” I talk more about how my Charlie Brown tree was more complicated, in some ways, than my typical tree in my podcast episode on this same topic… I link to it below (or you can always find all the podcast info on the “podcast” tab from any page of this blog).

4. Keep it Real (but artificial is okay too)

While we foraged most of our decorations this year, I’m a big fan of combining some artificial pieces with the real items.

1. Over mantles

On our one mantle this year, the one that is over our wood stove (which is constantly hot, as our primary source of heat in this old farmhouse), I just placed a little artificial greenery, buffalo plaid ribbon and wooden beads. We started with real pine branches there, but they were dead and brown in days, which is a fire hazard there, since our wood stove that sits directly under that mantle runs hot 24/7. If a dry, brittle tree branch fell on it, well let’s just say we don’t want that to happen.

Another mantle was a perfect spot to just drape greenery and lay some dried oranges and pinecones on top. It’s so simple, but so pretty.

Then our kitchen mantle was the one we spent the most time on, with a long swag of evergreen pieces we tied together with twine then added dried orange slices and pinecones, each tied on with twine.

2. In baskets

In baskets, I added some artificial holly and berries among the real evergreen clippings. A few ornaments and pinecones were nice finishing touches.

3. On wreaths

Our advent wreath is primarily artificial. That makes it nice and easy to move on and off our kitchen table, but I wanted it to have the same look as the rest of our decorations, and look like I had foraged it from nature too, so I stuck pine branches, pinecones, and dehydrated oranges around the artificial base to make the artificial look more all-natural.

I also added some evergreen clippings to our artificial red berry wreath that we hung on the inside side of our front door, to decorate our carriage house area.

5. Make Things with the Kids

Kayla was telling me as we walked the woods to find grapevines how she remembered watching me twist and form wreaths from bendable twigs as a kid and found it magical. To see her then having a ball when we returned to the house, twisting her own wreaths, with our “loot” of evergreen and vines surrounding her, was pretty special. So what are some great items to make with the kids for simple farmhouse Christmas decorations?

• salt dough ornaments
• cinnamon salt dough ornaments
• salt dough and twine garlands
• dried fruit
• a garland of letters

The letter garland

We used adhesive light interfacing , covered in burlap, to cut out letters then strung them on twine, spelling out “Come Let Us Adore Him.”

Since I’m writing this in 2020, a year none of us who have lived through it will ever forget, a year of separation and fear and confusion caused by a worldwide pandemic, I feel like our little garland was perfectly hung over our simple, bare tree. You see, the meek tree and the simple words are a constant reminder of who we need to be truly focused on. Not fancy decorations or the fear around us, but Christ. Always Christ.

The dried citrus slices

We dry citrus slices in our dehydrator that happens to double as an air fryer (gosh I love this appliance!). Slice the fruit thin and cook on dehydrator trays at 140 degrees for 6-8 hours.

Other directions

You can find directions for the other ideas listed here in this article.

6. Find Unexpected Decorations

I had two empty coffee table that it took me a week to decide something to put there. I finally spent a few minutes scouring the barn attic, and immediately knew I wanted to use two of my grandmom’s old enamelware.

First there was my grandmom’s serving tray. It has this eye-popping red rim that I knew I wanted to use to decorate. It of course had a non-Christmas design on it… a flower cart… so I brought down an armload of possibilities of pottery pieces, wooden bowls and candle holders to decide what I wanted to display on the tray to mask the flower cart. A few pails filled with greenery and some scattered pine cones did the trick.

Then I have this enamel baking dish of my grandmom’s. The green trim is perfect for Christmas. I just laid greenery, pinecones and ornaments inside. If you’re putting it near a electrical outlet a strand of lights would be nice too. Then I remembered a sweet pottery poinsettia a daughter made me one year, added a candle, and I can’t tell you how much I love this centerpiece. I smile every time I look at it.

But my point is, you may have the perfect items for decorating in a box in the corner of your basement and not even know it because it’s not what you typically think of as “Christmas.”

But I bet you’ll have more joy looking at those items for the 6 weeks of Christmas than you’d ever have from the same-old-same-old decorations you put out every year or the new thing you grab at Hobby Lobby that doesn’t have any sentimental meaning to you.

Whether you take one or all of these tips to heart, I hope you find a few ways to truly have a simple farmhouse Christmas, even if you live in a condo in the city and even though we all know that Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy.

—- If you are inspired by any suggestions here, please share on social media with the hashtags #SimpleChristmas and #SimpleDoesntMeanEasy and tag me so I can share your gorgeous decorations too! —-

Powered by RedCircle

Other Christmas articles you’ll like:

More Simple Christmas Decorating

Surviving the holidays when you’re burdened with grief or depression

Your Nativity Scene is Missing a Few Things

How to Make a Gingerbread Farmhouse

Pin this for later!

Click on the image below to pin this post.

 

Find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018 and then one of the Top Homesteading Blogs of 2019 as well.

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

 

 

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

The post 6 Tips for a Simple Farmhouse Christmas first appeared on Souly Rested.

I’m thinking of those nouns–hope, peace, and joy–in the deep-seated, faith-filled way… the way that calm joy can settle down into your fiber but make no sense in your thoughts… the way that soothing peace can level out your racing heart and slowly end your tears but make no sense with what your eyes, or bank account, or aching heart tells you.

When you have nothing to give

Two Christmases ago was the only Christmas I have lived through that I had no pressents under the tree. And had no tree until hours before Christmas morning when I yanked a broken, pathetic artificial one from the recesses of the barn attic. One I had rescued from the dump years prior, thinking I would set it up on an outside back porch.

Two Christmases ago was the first Christmas I had lived through without a mom, and the loss was fresh and deep.

Two Christmases ago was my dad’s first Christmas in 55 years that he had lived through without his Queenie, as he tongue-in-cheek called my mom since long before I was born.

But we were together. We sang Silent Night elbow to elbow at our church’s candlelight service on Christmas Eve, and prayed that indeed our tears over loosing mom so suddenly to cancer would soon be silent. Then, back home on the couch in his slippers, Dad looked at me with shocked sadness in his handsome brown eyes when he realized, “I don’t have any presents for anyone.” Of course none of us had any gifts for anyone. We had just lived through the most difficult 6 weeks we’d ever navigated.

Dad’s grief over being empty-handed was something I decided I could surely rectify. I rummaged through closets desperate for something, anything, he could give to his 4 granddaughters. I dug out 4 lip glosses and 4 gift bags from odd corners, and my Dad played Santa with great pleasure. When he presented each gift to each granddaughter on Christmas morning, you would have thought he had wrapped up gold jewelry or green-monster-seating tickets to Fenway. Having something to give brought him sincere joy. Watching him slowly place his meager gifts under the crooked tiny (okay I’ll just admit it… ugly) tree and face me with a nod and sly smile brought out my dimples and my tears simultaneously.

Along with Dad’s humble offerings, a sweet neighbor had dropped off small, wrapped pairs of cozy socks for each of us. So with moist lips and warm toes, we spent the afternoon creating a gingerbread farm the likes of which will never be repeated.

The sun began to lower in her course across the Christmas sky. And I found myself wishing the morning that I had dreaded–the morning that I thought would be depleted of any reason to smile–could linger because, to my shock, it was filled with deep-seated hope and peace.

Dad turned to me and said, with a little shock but no hesitation, “It was my most joyful Christmas I ever had.” Dad felt it too. That calm joy can settle down into your fiber but make no sense in your thoughts. A deep-seated joy that is independent of circumstances.

When you feel so alone

Then the next Christmas was the first one I lived through without my Daddy. But that loss had settled in for almost a year by the time Christmas arrived. Dad went to be with his Queenie only days after his most joyful Christmas ever–our gingerbread Christmas–one month after Mom died, and, much more importantly he would want me to explain, he went to be with his gracious God who had saved a wretch like himself and been oh-so-good to him.

Just weeks before, on the oncology floor of the hospital near my childhood home, I sat holding mom’s thin hands and massaging her legs that no longer agreed to hold her weight. Only weeks later, I was shivering in a fluorescent-lit, sterile ER room, after a long ambulance ride, in a New Year’s Eve blizzard. The long dark drive that night from my New England farmhouse, which had become Dad’s home too, ended with me standing over Dad’s tired, limp body. I kissed his cool forehead and said goodbye to the man who still had stories he never told me and songs he never sang me. He was already with his Savior, and I was left standing there in a cold hospital in a pool of pain and loneliness.

When you feel helpless

As I tried to define my days after two sudden losses, I had reason to rejoice when my daughter saw an end in sight to years’ worth of almost-unbearable chronic pain. Just a few months after sitting with Mom as she fought cancer with every breath, I was sitting in a hospital room with Jordyn after her successful spinal fusion. We worked through recovery and physical therapy and were just starting to glimpse a true reason for hope, which was the point when I wrote this article. But then the lowest point of my life crept in.

Just as snow was melting and spring buds were filling the horizon with faint colors, Jordyn started screaming with pain that doctors seemed unable to define.

Then they put a name to her agony–Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, from surgical nerve damage–and she and I both entered a long, dark night that stretched from spring into summer.

I didn’t notice that maple sap supplies needed to be cleaned, garden seedlings tended to, and rows of vegetables planted.

Jordyn was experiencing pain that words can’t define.

I was experiencing the hopelessness of a mother who can call experts around the globe, yet have no way to offer her daughter any relief. I make notes, read medical journals, insisted on personally speaking with head surgeons, and had pharmacists on speed dial, all while living in the ICU with no sleep, no showers, and little food, yet I could do nothing.

When you don’t know if night will end

It was a long, dreadful, deeply dark night that stretched across two seasons and ended with a 10-day clinical trial 400 miles from home. The trial offered Jordyn some relief and the ability to return to a life outside of an ICU. Her life will never be pain-free, and college, which she had worked toward so eagerly for so long, is now a severe struggle. If you’d like to know more about Jordyn’s battle with an uncommon neurological syndrome, you can read a little more on her Go Fund Me page.

When life is painfully raw

That Christmas… last Christmas… I was a different person. I welcomed the Advent Season as a woman who had seen how brutally, painfully raw life can be and who also had seen and felt the raw sovereignty and love of God co-existing with the dark pain.

That was the point that I sat down and wrote the little Advent ebook that is available in my Subscriber Library (download my 7-pg pantry checklist there as well): Hope, Peace, and Joy, Even in the Midst of Tears.

This Christmas? I was overjoyed to welcome this Advent Season.

The first day of Advent, I attended an elaborate, gorgeous Christmas Gala. The vaulted-ceiling sanctuary was filled with the sounds of the orchestra and the melodious voices of 5 college choirs.

The next night I had the joy of decorating our own simple, tired church with my teen daughters. We put up a diminutive tree and simple wreaths that we accented with pinecones, red berries, and burlap for ribbon. The church bells tolled 7, then 8, and all the while our humble efforts were serenaded by Christmas iTunes, stories, and giggles.

Both evenings were a perfect way to usher in the Advent season, one reminding me of God’s majesty and the other of the humbleness of the first Christmas and the importance of quiet moments, free of clutter, with the ones who are imprinted on my heart.

I truly wish glimpses of both for you this Christmas season–glimpses of the indescribable majesty of a God who goes to unimaginable extremes to build a personal relationship with you. And glimpses of a God who wants to be in the small, simple moments that define your day and your life.

Stop over on my winter-themed pinterest board for lots more winter-themed reading.

Take a second to stop over in my Subscriber Library and download the advent ebook.

Not a subscriber? It’s easy peasy to access not only my little book Hope, Peace, and Joy, Even in the Midst of Tears, but all my ebooks and resources, by signing up right here (and snag my 7-pg Pantry Checklist too). I truly hope it is a blessing to you this holiday season.

When you have nothing to give…

when you feel all alone…

when you feel helpless…

when you don’t know if night will end…

and when life is simply and totally painfully RAW…

Please, friend, know that you are not alone. Know that you are loved with an undefinable, indescribable love. I can’t tell you the “why” for your pain. Life is so painful and hard. It always will be, on this side of heaven. But it offers deep, simple joys as well.

I can assure you that I’ve been at the bottom of that black, dark, bitterly lonely hole of helplessness and sheer “alone.” And even there, there was a glimmer of hope, peace, and joy.

This post is the last in my 4-part Grief Series. I wrote about the stages of grief, resources that comforted me in my grief, and questions I wished I had asked.

Other holiday-themed articles:

Reflections on why nativity scenes should include muddy cows,

Christmas “riches” to a homesteader,

How to make a gingerbread farm, and

How we decorate our old farmhouse with all-natural choices.

For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. 2 Chronicles 16:9

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted. Psalm 34:18

Pin this for later!

Click on the image below to pin this post.

 

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

Many readers often ask what camera I use to take the images you find here on SoulyRested. I love my Nikon; you can read more about my camera and even purchase your own here.

And hop over here to find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018.

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

And please follow along!

Please take a second to follow along here on SoulyRested to catch up on a few of my memorable mishaps, discover fascinating things about my centuries-old farmhouse, glean a little parenting/homeschooling insight from this momma who’s been failing at the effort for almost 2 decades, or enjoy the inside scoop on the secrets other legit homesteaders might not tell you.

I hope my focus always encourages you, because simple joys require hard work. Let’s face it, we all need all the encouragement we can get! As soon as you subscribe (in the box at the end of this post), you’ll have immediate access to my Resource Library, which includes my FREE EBOOKs, and amazing recipes for things like whoopie pie cookies, maple sap switchel, and my grandmom’s perfect pie crust.

If you already ARE a subscriber, just hop over to the Resource Library here and enter your personal password. (If you don’t remember your password, no fear, we always include a personalized reminder in every Thursday email, “Hard Work, Simple Joys.”)

And have you tried my a-MAAHZ-ing Maple Sugar Cookie recipe that’s in my Resource Library? You won’t find this deliciousness anywhere else and what a perfect holiday treat! 

The post Surviving the holidays when you’re burdened with grief or depression first appeared on Souly Rested.

A Cherished Childhood Tradition

We released the ceramic animals from their blocks of styrofoam and arranged them under a rustic wooden stable. She had helped me with this coveted chore–unboxing the nativity scene–every December that she remembers. She was aiding me over a decade ago, when her sweet, pudgy fingers gave me no assurance that a sheep wouldn’t be dropped or a shepherd’s staff broken. Small, unsteady hands handling them through the years resulted in today’s precariously super-glued donkey legs and chipped Wise Men urns.

This nativity scene has been a cherished part of every one of her childhood Christmases (even those she can’t remember); she’s adored the characters, handled the animals, and cried over pieces when her eagerness led to their brokenness. 

Her words would have caught me off guard, except, I had already been thinking the same thing.

“Ya know what? It’s all wrong.”

With the Eyes of a Homesteader

This was the first time we had peeled off the styrofoam lid from the painted, ceramic Mary and Joseph since our family had become newbie homesteaders.

This was the first time she had pulled out the crude stable from its box since she had herself finished building the walls of her own stable.

This was the first time she released the cow from this taped-up foam fort since she herself had brought home her own cow.

And things weren’t quite right. We looked at our nativity scene with new eyes. With a homesteader’s eyes. With a farmer’s eyes. What’s wrong with the nativity scene? We realized our little nativity scene is a romanticized, sugar-coated depiction of a humble, dirty, smelly story.

What’s Wrong with the Nativity Scene?

Anyone who has spent even a little bit of time in a barn knows the hay that fills the manger is the same hay the birds perch in and, yes, poop in.

What’s wrong with the nativity scene? Well, anyone who knows a manger knows it’s not worthy of a newborn baby’s bed. It’s the food trough. Filled with, well, poopie hay.

Anyone who knows a farm, knows a nativity scene doesn’t include all of the common farm animals, like hens, who love to walk around in garbage (ours adore our compost pile), then roost up on a food trough and, well, poop.

Then there are the farm animals that are included in most nativity scenes, you know, the sweet, groomed sheep, donkey, and cows. We don’t have a lot of time to groom our farm animals, and Scout, our cow, loves to be dirty. I’m guessing bovines in ancient Bethlehem wouldn’t look as good as Scout, not alone as pristine as the ones in our nativity scene.

This year, why not make a gingerbread FARM with the kids and grandkids?

A Spiffy Shepherd?

Our ceramic shepherd adds to the deception. He looks like he checked into the Bethlehem Holiday Inn to spruce himself up in preparation for meeting the child king. He definitely doesn’t look like he just came in from the fields. Around our homestead, we wear a lot of muddy boots, and we don’t come in from the pasture looking too spiffy or smelling so great.

This post contains affiliate links. Go here to read the full (ultra fun) legal disclosure about that.

Wearing White?

Our nativity’s Mary is wearing white. And it’s, well, white. Nothing is actually white on our farm. And she and Joseph look so calm. (And did I mention clean?) Never mind that they just traveled 5 days, expecting a baby any minute, and knowing that their trip would lead to higher taxes next year. (Caesar would never call for registration unless he had plans to raise taxes.)

A Meager Salary and Higher Taxes

On that long trip, Mary probably thought long and hard about how Joseph’s meager carpenter salary would bring home less money next year. Yep, more mouths to feed and less money in their pockets. And never mind that when they arrived in their own home town, the town where Joseph grew up, none of their family offered them a mattress to sleep on, because Mary has disgraced the family name with her seeming promiscuity, getting pregnant before saying “I do.”

So Mary’s dress dragged in the dust, hanging from the back of the diminutive donkey, for an uncomfortable 5-day trip. All the while, her head filled with worries over rising taxes, judging family members, and the looming labor. I assume not one of Joseph’s sisters offered to do Mary’s laundry, none of his aunts loaned Mary a change of clothes, and yet my nativity Mary’s white is bleached alabaster and her smile is a scrubbed-clean peaceful.

If you’d like to simplify your Christmas decorations (and make them for free!) be sure to read this.

After the holidays are over, consider these 9 things to do on a long winter evening.

And if you’re looking for a nativity scene, I couldn’t find one with dirty cows (I tried), but I do love this simple, elegant nativity scene. Then there’s this one… nothing simple about it really, but I’m in love with the stable. (affiliate links) Check out the links below for others I adore.

A Humble, Dirty Story

What’s wrong with the nativity scene? Manger scenes are glorified pictures of what was, in reality, a humble, dirty, smelly story. Truly, nothing is more humbling than thoughts of an immense, inconceivable God, who knew no barriers of time or space, yet voluntarily contained Himself in a frail human body and left the perfectness of heaven to live in the smelliness of a sinful, fallen world, where He was greeted, at birth, by an adversary eager to devour Him. And he did it all so He could face a horrible death and take the punishment for our sins.

No it’s not a pretty story. It’s smelly and messy.

An Ugly Character From Revelation

So beside our pristinely clean nativity cow, we added a unique character. One that isn’t included in any nativity scene, but I personally think it should be. One that reminds us not of Luke, but of Revelation. (Revelation 12:3-4 to be exact.) We added an ugly dragon.

Our Nativities Need Some Ugliness

Yes, I think in every nativity scene, the cow should be muddy, Mary should be wearing a dirty dress and a worrisome look, baby Jesus’s manger should look more like an unclean food trough, and an ugly red dragon should be perched at the feet of the baby. Maybe those few realistic additions would remind us that it was an ugly, messy story–this story of our salvation from our sins.

Mind you, I’m just a newbie homesteader, and I’m no expert in animal husbandry, not alone red dragon proficiency. (I can tell you that the dragon represented Satan, who was desiring to devour Christ at his birth.) But I do know how this story will end. We actually have known that from the beginning. (Genesis 3:15)

Looking for a Red Dragon of your own?

If you’d like to add a reminder to your own nativity scene that the whole story–this story of God saving his people from their sins–is a dirty, difficult, humbling story, maybe you’d like to add a red dragon to your nativity scene.

I never could find one with 7 heads or 10 horns, like the dragon John described in Reveleation, but this red dragon right here is the one I purchased. It’s about 6″ from ugly pointed nose to vicious pointed tail tip. But I also found these other two on Amazon that are roughly the same size, if you’d like to go red dragon shopping. This red dragon and this one here would both be perfect additions to any creche in my humble opinion.

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. Luke 2:11

Please follow along!

Please take a second to follow along here on SoulyRested to catch up on a few of my memorable mishaps, discover fascinating things about my centuries-old farmhouse, glean a little parenting/homeschooling insight from this momma who’s been failing at the effort for almost 2 decades, or enjoy the inside scoop on the secrets other legit homesteaders might not tell you.

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

Pin this for later!

Just hover over this image for the Pinterest logo or click below.–>

Merry Christmas

I hope that you have time to slow down and savor the everyday joys this holiday season, I pray that you personally know the sovereign savior who voluntarily contained Himself in a frail human body that first Christmas morning because he loves you, and I sincerely wish you a truly blessed, very merry Christmas.

I hope you have true Christmas Riches this holiday season.

The post Nativity scenes need muddy cows and red dragons first appeared on Souly Rested.

I’ve never had so much fun anticipating Christmas. And I haven’t been shopping or wrapped one present. We haven’t even picked out our tree yet.

Today I’m sharing six simple ways we’ve decorated our old farmhouse this Christmas without spending one dime or requiring one ounce of Martha-Stewart-ish abilities There’s even a video of me stapling tree bark. Yep.

Investing in Simple Holiday Joys

Instead of the typical spreading ourselves thin, my two teen daughters and I have invested ourselves into making simple, natural decorations together. Just a little at a time. In the process, we’ve been investing in each other.

That last investment has been too sparse within our family this year. The reasons why we’re so eager to experience simple holiday joys every day this month?

They’re ugly. Cancer. Loss. Pain.

Those are the reasons my family is eagerly embracing simple holiday joys this year. You see, this time last year I was preparing for my mom’s funeral, having just lost her to an aggressive evil called “cancer.” Within a month I was planning my dad’s funeral. His loss was even more sudden and colossal for me. Then a precious daughter had spinal fusion surgery and suffered, and is still suffering, devastating results from that surgery.

No, we didn’t have any decorations last year; we barely even noticed the holiday last winter.

We did one thing very well last Christmas. In fact, we’ll be building another gingerbread farm this Christmas.

When Simple Holiday Joys are More Precious

If I’m honest, I’ll admit that all of the seasons since have been blurred. I barely noticed my last 12 months. But our decorations in this new season of hope are helping me regain a focus. A perspective. A reminder of true joy. Unto us a child is born! One who will right wrong and defeat the vilest of murderers and the father of lies. (John 8:44) One who will wipe my tears and quiet me with his love and sweet singing. (Revelation 21:4 and Zephaniah 3:17) There is true reason to celebrate!

After big loss and deep pain, simple joys are more precious.

I wrote about when mom was told she was going to have to battle cancer, loosing Mom to cancer and Dad to a broken heart, the 4 stages of grief, and comforting resources. If you too are facing severe grief and loss, it is my sincere hope that my words there will offer comfort and a literary hug.

I won’t claim that any of our decorating ideas are overly original. Well, maybe stapling tree bark into rings is a little original (or weird). And they sure aren’t complicated. But they also aren’t “easy” by today’s standards, when everyone wants to pop open a pre-lit tree, find an outlet, and be done.

Kayla’s first idea, for example, consisted of grabbing buckets, jars, and shovels and scouring the woods for miniature Charlie Brown trees.

Yes, as I always say, simple joys require hard work. But this work is oh-so-good–this work of being elbow-to-elbow with my teens, gathering supplies from nature; bellowing Christmas carols together, right along with Crosby and Cole; and creating something pretty while talking about deep subjects and frivolous ones, side-by-side.

So here’s a round up of a few simple joys we’ve brought into our home this season, with the hope that one may inspire you to do a little holiday work too, because the payout promises to be worthwhile.

Unearth a Tiny Tree, or Ten.

While her largest treasure looks adorable in my Uncle Roger’s old wooden nail bucket, and my unearthed mini trees fit perfectly in my old enamel pans, the rest of our tiny trees are scattered around the house in Mason jars, tied up with scraps of gingham.

Spice up Some Salt Dough.

We uped the wow factor of our salt dough ornaments this year by adding cinnamon, then we tied some with red checked fabric as ornaments and strung others on twine for window garlands.

This is the recipe we used:

• 4 cups flour
• 8 Tbs. ground cinnamon (aff link)
• 1 cup salt
• 3/4 to 1 cup water

Mix well, using just enough water to make a workable dough. Roll out to 1/8″ thickness and bake on greased cookie sheet, at 300 degrees, for 30-45 minutes or until ornaments are hard. (Don’t forget to make your holes for hanging before you bake.) When cool, spray with sealer if you would like. But even without sealer these ornaments will store well in a dry, sealed container for many years.

You could also opt to make ornaments using a nifty salt-dough kit like this one. (aff link)

 

Oranges and Stars and Twine, oh my!

This craft seemed more exotic than it is, at least in my mind, and it was even more aromatic than the cinnamon ornaments when it was baking.

To make dried oranges:

1. Slice 2-3 oranges, crosswise, into roughly 1/8″ slices.
2. Line orange slices up on cookie trays, sprayed with cooking spray.
3. Bake the slices for 6-9 hours at 200 degrees.
4. Make sure the oranges are no longer soft or sticky when you take them out of the oven.
5. Pierce the dried slices with a toothpick and string twine through them to make ornaments, garlands, or wreath decorations.

I love the way the slices in our window garlands glisten and shine in the morning hours.

Selah’s birth has been the highlight of our homesteading experience. I wrote about it here.

Make Some Tree Rings.

I hopped on facebook for a minute last week to show how we make this beautiful birch bark garland. Yep, this is the part where some may say I’m a little weird, stapling bark circles. So far, we’ve made enough garland for our thin, artificial tree that stands in our carriage house. If we keep peeling and stapling, we’ll add some birch garland to our front porch as well.

Wrap it up and Hang it.

We used to have a wild grape vine that grew along our back fence in a previous home, in a previous state. Most winters I would long to clear the clutter of vines that lingered after the leaves had fallen, so I would twist the thin, pliable branches into a tight circle and the girls would use it to decorate their backyard playhouse. Kayla shared with me last month that she remembered that with fond amazement, how I could make a beautiful wreath from clutter I had yanked from around a fence post, and asked if we could forage for vines and I could teach her to work similar magic.

She was almost disappointed at the ease of twisting the long twigs then sticking in evergreen and winterberry to create a front-door masterpiece.

Just Stick it Somewhere.

Winterberry is prevalent in our low-lying areas, bordering the marsh, so it was a no-brainer to go clip some branches for a display. I discovered the old sap bucket in our barn attic years ago, and it’s been a part of our Christmas decorations ever since. Once filled with 3 small birch logs with a strand of lights buried around their base, another year overflowing with evergreens, and this year crowned with red jubilant berries.

The shadows cast by our entryway lantern make the front hall even more magical.

More Simple Holiday Joy:

6 Tips for a Simple Farmhouse Christmas

Find out what’s wrong with a nativity scene, and what we added to ours.

Gift giving ideas you’ll love, based one my 3 favorite cookbooks of all time.

Surviving the holidays. (And a printable Advent book.)

A Videos About Simple Holiday Joys:

In this facebook live, I showed how we make a birch bark garland.

And join me for a minute in my farmhouse’s carriage house, and I’ll show you another Christmas wreath.

For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
    and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
    there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
    to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
    from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Isaiah 9: 6-7

Pin this for later!

Click on an image below to pin this post.

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

Here I wrote about why I wish nativity scenes had muddy cows: a newbie homesteader ponders the first Christmas.

Find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018 and then one of the Top Homesteading Blogs of 2019 as well.

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

 

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

The post Simple Christmas Joys first appeared on Souly Rested.

We didn’t make a gingerbread house. We made a gingerbread farm. Our inspiration? Our own 200-year old farmhouse, our own farm animals, and a Christmas without presents.

I’d been out of town for most of November and December. I’d looked over the girls’ school work from my mom’s hospital room 400 miles away, video chatting and texting with them throughout the school day when I could, and trying to keep the bare minimum necessities of life together, albeit by a long-distance shoe string, to the best of my limited ability. (Surviving times such as this–as well as enjoying the freedom to do the fun things, like make a 3-week, 3000-mile road trip across country in May–are a few of the many reasons I am very thankful that I have had the blessing of homeschooling my 4 daughters for almost 2 decades.)

Needless to say, I hadn’t planned for Christmas.

Editor’s Note: Just two short days after I posted this article on that oh-so-difficult holiday season last year, my daddy taught me a lot about Broken Heart Syndrome.

The following Christmas I shared this reason for peace, hope & joy.

Aside from a few stocking stuffers I had picked up earlier that summer, the area under the tree would be bare. I was explaining this to a daughter–the one who lives in the fields all spring, summer, and fall and in the kitchen all winter. The one who always loves creating a new edible excitement. She said there was no need for Christmas morning to be uneventful and suggested we think about a gingerbread house inspiration.

Another daughter–engineer and designer–adopted the idea with enthusiastic precision, and a authentic-replica, edible reproduction of our homestead took shape on Christmas morning. Yes, our own homestead served as the perfect gingerbread house inspiration.

Enjoy more homemade Christmas inspiration from our farmhouse with these Simple, All-natural Christmas Decorations.

See more of my 200-year-old farmhouse & learn 3 Secrets Old Farmhouse Owners Might Never Tell You.

Or just see a really cool thing we did with an old farmhouse door.

We Found a Good Recipe

We came up with a great gingerbread recipe and got to work.

I share the full recipe here. 

Once we got the walls positioned with the icing glue, we mixed up a few batches of regular confectioners sugar icing to attach all the candies because we found the icing glue to be very thick, hard to work with, and almost impossible to pipe out of our icing bag.

Everyone Joined in on the Building Fun

Our creation was complete with a main farm house, a barn, and a carriage house to connect the two. Past the barn, stood our chicken coop, which also houses our ducks. Dad joined in on the fun and after separating the red fruit loops from the rest, “painted” our coop in tasty style. Since he had actually helped us paint our coop a few summers ago, we teased him that he’s a good painter, even with circles of cereal. And he thoroughly enjoyed the fine-motor-skills activity.

My daddy was born and raised on a rural farm; being raised on a farm impacts you forever.

We love our chicken and our labradoodle; read here for how we trained our dog to love our free-ranging chicken.

   This post contains affiliate links to products I love using for making gingerbread houses.  

We Stayed Close to Home for Inspiration

While we have some adorable animal cookie cutters, we didn’t have a tiny chicken cookie cutter, so we were content to imagine the chicken were all foraging in the woods, which they love to do.

But the replica kept growing. As the day progressed, our gingerbread house inspiration just continued to grow. We added our lean-to to the barn and of course piled in some hay bales.

We had to add a garden.

We designed our little fenced-in swimming pool, complete with a Life Saver lifesaver.

And one daughter insisted we needed to add our outdoor shower.

Gingerbread Animals Cropped up Everywhere

We added other farm critters, including bunnies that had escaped the barn (with Dad running behind them).

And of course our farm wouldn’t be complete without Scout, our sweet dairy cow. (She even had an udder made of fruit chews.)

A few final touches of a lamppost and our newest family member, PapPap, walking to the mailbox with our loyal Bixby on his heels, and we were done.

But the memories will be treasured for a lifetime. Memories of the Christmas without presents. The Christmas that was filled not with wrapping paper and bows but with sweet family time.

We Enjoyed Sweet Details

If you’d like to copy any of our ideas for your own gingerbread farm, here’s some of our “design secrets.”

For a garden plot–crush up Oreo cookies.

As a garden gate–stand mini pretzels upright with icing glue.

To create corn stalks–paint toothpicks green and attach yellow Nerd candy pieces with green-dyed icing.

To create family members’ and farm animals’ gingerbread replicas–use tinted icing, sprinkles, colored sugar, and Nerd candies to add personal details.

As a lamppost–layer wintergreen lifesavers with icing glue and top them with a square of mini graham cracker squares and icing. For the light, stick on yellow jelly bean halves.

For a lean-to–prop up a thin cardboard roof with chocolate-covered pretzels. Attach pink Canada mints for roofing material and fill the lean-to with fudge blocks for hay bales.

For an outdoor shower–slice a white jelly bean in half, glue it on the house and stick various lengths of blue-painted toothpicks out of the jelly bean for streams of water.

To create a log cabin “look”–slice chocolate covered pretzels rods into “logs.”

For a big barn door–slice black jelly beans in half to fill the space. (Or any flavor that’s your least favorite–which for our family happens to be the black licorice–that way you save your favorite flavor for eating. Which is, of course, almost as important as the construction.)

If you enjoyed this SWEET post (see what I did there?) you’ll go crazy over this book!

We Offered Each Other the Best Things We Could

I’m so thankful that amidst deep sadness, difficulties, months of separation, and a Christmas without presents, we truly gave each other the best things we could have offered each other: our time and our deep appreciation of each other. As a result, sweetness–and Christ’s love–abounded.

Our Christmas had started with a beautiful Christmas Eve candlelight service that brought joyous leaps to my heart and sweet tiny tears to the edge of my eye.

And our Christmas–the first without a wife, mom, and NaNa whom we all adored–ended up being very sweet after all.

I hope this post finds you well and looking forward to a New Year. Wishing you a very Merry Christmas from our little neck of the woods. . .

I’ll leave it on this note. . .  because the prophet Isaiah summed up my feelings pretty well, thousands of years ago: “He brings good news to the poor and binds up the brokenhearted,… He grants those who mourn a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, [and gingerbread joys instead of gift-less sadness,] the oil of gladness instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.” (Isaiah 61) 

If you decide to make your own edible homestead, please share YOUR gingerbread house inspirations with me by commenting or sharing pictures below. I’d love to hear about it!

More Christmas Inspiration You’ll Enjoy:

Here you’ll find lots of inspiration for an all-natural, homemade Christmas.

And I think you’ll love hearing why nativity scenes should all have muddy cows and red dragons.

Gift giving ideas you’ll love, based one my 3 favorite cookbooks of all time.

Surviving the holidays when you’re depressed. (And a printable Advent book.)

“He grants those who mourn. . . a garment of praise instead of a faint spirit.” Isaiah 61:3

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

Pin this for later!

Just click this picture to pin this post.–>

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

The post How We Made a Gingerbread Farm first appeared on Souly Rested.