December 2024 SunFun
Prayers and Praises
What a wonderful holiday season! We are so grateful for our first Christmas at our new home. It was all the magical fun it should be. As you can see from the videos above, there was a lot that happened. The first weekend was Erica’s 4th Visual & Vibes, beautiful as ever. The second weekend was the bazaar at church, which is always fun, and the 3rd weekend was Jessica’s birthday! Encanto themed was so fun! And we definitely talked about Bruno. We just slid into Christmas Eve from there, with my lovely sister and I cooking some amazing food for Carina Christmas, and then my mom having everyone over for Christmas day. Anna also came up with the great idea of doing 1pm brunch on New Years Eve, which meant I could say CHEERS for the new year with Brazil at 10pm, and then go to bed.
Sofia had a really lovely Christmas program at school where the 4th graders performed their recorders and she did a “Wax Museum” where she dressed up and performed as a famous Hoosier: Anne Baxter. Caid was able to take part in the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir’s performance of the Messiah (Fancy Dancy) at the Palladium in Carmel. We all managed to get the sniffles and cough between Christmas and New Years, but not succumb into the whole sickness (and we are mostly better now). I feel so blessed and happy to be a homebody with a stack of books in the cold weather, and time to think and organize my thoughts going into the new year.
Interweb Reads:
Me things: What do Missionaries want for Christmas?, Best Movies and Shows of 2024, Bad Therapy review, Habits of a Household review, For Fidelity review, Graphic Novels 2024, Non-Fiction 2024, Memoir 2024, Fiction 2024, Kid’s Books 2024, Best Media 2024, Best of my 2024
Missionary things: TCKs & Six Forms of Belonging (A Life Overseas), Expat Christmas is ever-changing, yet evergreen (A Life Overseas), End of the Year list: 3 books and 3 podcast episodes (A Life Overseas), How Spiritual Direction can Help Missionaries (A Life Overseas)
Other Things: Two Lessons for Beginning Writers (Rachel Pieh Jones), When Family and Life feel tender, How Joy can meet you this Christmas (Ann Voskamp), End-of-year reflection questions 2024 (Courtney Martin), The 2025 Everyday Reading Book Club list (Everyday Reading), The Wood Between the Worlds (Marilyn R. Gardner), Worship Now and other thoughts on whether God cares how loud I sing (Amy Medina)