December 28 – “Anticipation …again”

So Christmas is getting close around here.  Again.  Yesterday I worked to get my sermon for Sunday as far along as possible.  Chris spent most of the day cleaning house.  And let me tell you … it’s clean.  Well, maybe not “Granny clean,” but it’s most  certainly “Christi clean.”  I think that’s our new standard.

And speaking of “Christi Clean,” Josh and Christi and their boys (and of course their new little girl) are due in sometime today as I understand the plans.  My “understanding the plan” is an essentially meaningless statement, I know.  But I think I heard something along those lines.  One way or the other I’m pretty sure they will be here Thursday and Friday.  And of course that means Kel’s brood of now five won’t be far behind.  Oh, and I’m fairly certain Cailyn will want to be around as well.  After all, there are cousins to consider.  And two of those cousins she has never seen before.  Baby time.  No quiet time to be had around here for the next few days. 

In further anticipation of this onslaught – er, I mean this long-awaited extension of our holiday season - we made a trip to WalMart yesterday as well.  We had to get groceries for the occasion.  There are a few traditional dishes that must be made.  Christmas just wouldn’t be the same without, oh … roast and rice, or chicken enchilada pie, or breakfast bread, or frozen cheesecake, or pudding pie, or that all-time favorite … drumroll here … divinity (which, by the way, has already been made, so Kel and Josh and Nathan, if you want any of it, you’d better get here in a hurry tomorrow).  And Chris just said to me, “Oh, I forgot to buy cabbage.  I wasn’t even thinking about New Year’s Day.”  We’ll be going back soon.

We gathered up our full cart and headed to the checkout counter.  Now over the course of the last year we have been faithfully scanning our WalMart receipts to check for price matches on their savings catcher program.  I finally remembered to hit the redeem button.  After an intensive search of the WalMart website and the WalMart app on my phone, and after several miss-tries in conjunction with the checker, we finally put out an SOS call.  Fortunately, another checker knew the process (actually, the problem was that I wasn’t scrolling down far enough on the email screen of the notice they sent me.  As usual … operator error).  Anyway, we saved a whopping $90 towards the bill.  That’ll help.  I guess we’ll start scanning for next Christmas.

Philippians 1:9-11 says, “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ — to the glory and praise of God.”

Father, thank you for the renewed anticipation Chris and I are feeling as we wait for our little ones to get here (even our “older” little ones).  Amen.