A Weary Faith Revived!

A couple of ideas of inexpensive gifts for teachers or children.

Hot chocolate mix with mini marshmallows and cndy canes on the side.

Teddies in sleighs for teens was a big hit amongst my rellies!

We received some wonderful hampers which made me cry, lol! After having a big stretch of time with fridges and freezers turned off because we didn't have enough food, suddenly we were overflowing with food and drinks that we have been able to share with lots of others over this season of festivities.

God is so good!

I purchased a Christmas pudding from a friend in Melbourne who makes them to sell. I am still flabbergasted that the postie managed to shove it into our letterbox without damaging it! It was (and still is) absolutely delicious!

I know this next picture has nothing to do with Christmas, but I have included it because it keeps coming up at times when I need to just let go, and let God take the reins. 

I was trying to keep an attitude of "build it, and they will come" towards Christmas. I know that putting Christmas Day together takes lots of preparation, lots of planning and lots of patience to make it turn out nicely. There is no escaping the hard yards. So I kept planning towards making the day special and hoped that God would provide a miracle. 

And He did!

Just at the right time too! God is soooooooooooooooo good!

I made new Stockings for the kids to hang up on Christmas Eve. One of them worked out that Santa would be leaving less presents this year and he wanted to put out his Santa sack instead. 

These are the new stockings, imagine them x 9!

Anyway, the gifts I'd planned for friends and family were fairly cheap and easily made or ordered, so they were done in plenty of time. I had ordered some books from Koorong earlier in the year, so they were wrapped and ready to go into the stockings, but that was the extent of what I could do.
The builder we work for changed the pay dates and we were left without the extra we always counted on to make it through Christmas and into January. Fortunately, God knew that would happen and we unexpectedly received a private job that gave us just what we needed to get through!

So 2 days before Christmas, we start the Herculerian task of taking the kids in small batches to buy gifts for each other, and also to buy gifts for them! In the past, I have sworn to NEVER do it all at the last minute again, but this time I was just so grateful!

I didn't get to bed until 6am on Christmas Day, but it was worth it! They kindly let me sleep until 7.30am before they excitedly hopped into their Stockings. Each child was thrilled with what they received and we all felt like we had the best Christmas EVER!


I learned some big lessons for all the struggles we went through in 2012.

1. God is ALWAYS in control and He cares for us always.
2. Sometimes we need to let others minister to us.
3. A little goes a long way.
4. Contentment in all situations is awesome.
5. We can still help others, even in tough times.
6. There is so much more to learn!!!
7. When Plan A doesn't work, don't give up, just look for Plan B, C, D....
8. There were moments of joy that I will always treasure. ie: going to Melbourne; being pregnant for 8 weeks; a little holiday in Busselton.
9. Pulling together and trying new ways to make our money stretch, and learning new skills.
and
10. Someone else is doing it harder than us.


Doing it tough has actually turned out to be a treasure!

May God bless all who read this with good health, contentment, love and peace in 2013!