How We Personalized Christmas - A Dose of Encouragement

In the past we have often given someone a personalised present at Christmas or we have got personalised tree decorations for our kids

BUT  this year

we personalised Christmas quite a bit.

To start with it was our grandson Matthew's first Christmas and although he didn't know what was going on ( not even 8 weeks old by Christmas) we were all thinking about him and we started off by receiving gifts from others mentioning


"Baby's First Christmas"


Then we were at it ourselves because I bought a star tree decoration handmade about Matthew for our tree and then got one identical for Daniel & Suzie's tree.

But Fred was the one who thought of the idea that included everyone.


Now I'm the one who loves mugs and I always find myself glancing over the array of mugs in any place I see them just in case I will see a nice one (should be a bargain of course) or see one that makes me think of someone in particular and I know it will be a nice gift for them.


But Fred was the one who had the idea about the personalized mugs!


So he designed them for each of the family





The mugs for the proud grandparents.






The mugs for the proud aunt and uncle.






The mugs for the proud parents.

Then a mug for each of my 4 Black Boys.



And that is how we personalised Christmas this year.


So often we go through Christmas time in a blur of shopping, cooking, giving gifts, visiting and eating together but do we make sure that the time is really personalised?

We can personalise Christmas time in two ways and neither of them has anything to do with our names on mugs or anywhere else.

We can personalise Christmas Time in 2 ways.

We can personalise it by putting our mark on Christmas.

Yes we need time to shop for gifts and food, cook for the family and friends, give and receive gifts, visit and have meals together but we can also make time to engage with others on a good one to one basis and not just the hurried "Merry Christmas" and "hug".

We can think about little things that will make the time a happier memory for others or a time when they know someone cared enough to talk and listen to them and share a laugh or two.

I can think of a great example that happens each year in the Coffee Shop that our son Daniel manages in Belfast.  On Christmas Day anyone and everyone who may be on their own over Christmas are invited to come to Common Grounds and share in a Freshly Cooked full Christmas Dinner.

Volunteers flock to help and others are eager to donate food or money to provide a special meal and afternoon for anyone who drops in.
This year over 110 people were served and not only they, but also the volunteers were blessed in their time together.



We can personalise it by putting Christ's mark on Christmas.

Yes again we need to do all the practical things and a lot of what is involved now at Christmas time is centred around things rather than the person who is the reason we celebrate Christmas.

We need to make Jesus the Centre of Christmas and the Reason for Christmas.

One thing I insist on each year is that the Christmas cards we send out will always be focusing on Jesus and not referring to Christmas as a season.

  

Here are a few of my favourites  

And one we sent the kids in our Sunday School - deliberately picked to remind the children of the puppet show we had in church that year on the nativity and the fun time they had with the camel puppet.

Even this year when we sent out fewer cards and then sent an email greeting to link to a family letter on this blog we still wanted to express our thankfulness to God for sending the Saviour of the world and chose this picture for our Christmas greeting, keeping Christ at the centre.

We often hear things like:

“if you had been the only person on earth Jesus would have still died for you”

But we are not the only ones so we have a responsibility to put Christ's mark on each Christmas we celebrate here on earth to share Jesus with others and not remove Him from it.

We need to remember "Our mark & His mark".

I generally like to buy my Christmas Cards really early (as in the January sales!) so I am looking again now for a card with a fully Jesus centred theme to make sure I personalise Christmas for Christ.

I Wish People Would ..... - Coffee & Conversation

If you are a regular reader here or have stopped by my blog a few times then you may well know how much I Love Coffee & Chocolate.

Well at the moment I'm trying to cut down on the chocolate but ....  well not so much on the coffee.

I enjoy a large mug of coffee to sit and sip on when I'm checking my emails and sorting my ToDo lists in the morning & you also probably know how much I Love Lists and depend on them.

I do a lot of reading which is another Coffee Break Time and a lot of thinking so I thought I might do a new series on 

where I just talk a little about what is on my mind.

Today I'm starting with some things that  "I Wish"  about people.

I often WISH that I could recognise how all the people I meet are feeling so that I can understand them better.

So I PRAY that God will help me to understand people better and that He will help me do all those things I have mentioned in my little rant above.

Do you wish this about people? 

Do you pray this about yourself? 

Christmas Letter from the Blacks 2015

2015 has been one of those years that has gone so quickly,

 I felt like I never got caught up with myself.

The biggest event in our family this year was the birth of our first grandchild Matthew 

born to Daniel and Suzie 

on Monday 2nd November.  

Jonathan has continued to Pastor the church in Leeds while finishing off his Phd - well just the very last bit to go now.  He has also been around various churches teaching on different aspects of Theology
He has been over to visit us a few times this year but we believe we were not the real attraction for the last two visits!

Daniel & Suzie had a very busy year with Suzie being pregnant and little Matthew being born in November.  Unfortunately Fred was away on business when Matthew decided to arrive but that just meant that I got to cuddle Matthew before Fred did.

Daniel is still busy managing Common Grounds Coffee Shop near the university in Belfast and won the Northern Ireland Barista of the Year Championship in September.

Suzie was enjoying teaching P1 but was happy when it came time to go off on her maternity leave and we are not sure how happy she will be to return to teaching because she is so happy being at home with Matthew right now.

Linda is still in South Korea but has moved to a different area, Wongju in February to teach English at a university now.  It means we have new names to remember of friends that she has now made but she is still keeping in touch with her other Korean friends in Gangneung too.

She was able to come stay for a few weeks in August after having one of her best friends visit her in Korea.  Of course when she comes, she always brings some fun presents and this trip meant a selfie stick for Fred and of course he had to try it out straight away.

She is sad because she hasn't met her nephew yet except on facetime, so she has booked to fly over for the whole month of February and we are all looking forward to that.



Fred is doing the consultancy work that he moved into with Dupont during 2014.  This means he is travelling a lot to places like Saudi, Morocco, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, England, Finland, Australia and I've probably forgotten some others.
When he is here he is still leading worship and helping on the leadership of our church.

The Four Black Boys

This year I finished a Tesol course at Belfast Bible College along with a friend from our church and in September we started up weekly English Classes in the church.   There are about 35 people (mostly from Poland) who are regularly coming to learn English.  We did 10 weeks of classes before Christmas and we hope to have another 20 weeks before next summer so that takes a lot of time in preparation each week to teach a two hour class and I am back writing Lesson Plans again after all these years since teaching Maths.
I'm also continuing with the Sunday School Curriculum for our church and helping in other ways there too.

I have been busy with this blog that I started in 2012 but really got wholeheartedly into at the start of 2014 and enjoy the writing and making the graphics for it.  Quite often when we are out somewhere Fred will say "I suppose you want a picture for the blog?", or when we see something or talk about something someone will say "I can see a blog post coming out of that" and they are mostly right.


Fred & I did not get away on a nice long holiday this year (because he has been so busy with work) just two days in Ballycastle and the Dark Hedges but we thoroughly enjoyed that little weekend break for my birthday.

We also drove around various places in Southern Ireland for almost two weeks but that was not a holiday it was for Fred's work and I went along to make sure he stayed awake as he had to drive so many miles each evening from one place to another.
We did manage to have a few laughs along the way some of which you can read about in 10 Things that made me Laugh in Ireland


To finish up I would just like to give thanks to God for the fact that He has continued to be with us all in all our different locations and has guided each of us through our various experiences of this year.

Love to all

Sandra  &  the rest of the Black family

Pondering The Psalms - Psalm 141

Each Sunday I am going to choose a Psalm and write down some brief thoughts on it.


Today I'm looking at Psalm 141 

This is a Psalm of David


This Psalm falls into 4 parts:


V. 1-2
A prayer up to God


V. 3-4
My influences on my heart


V. 5-7
Outward influences on my heart


V. 8-10
My refuge

A Prayer up to God.
A plea to be heard by the Lord but respectful and offered in a reverential, sacrificial, form of worship.

Our influence on our hearts.
David is asking for God's help so that he can control his fleshly attitudes and not be enticed into any evil ways.


Outward influences on our hearts.
David is well aware of the evil around him and knows that he can trust God for protection from others and that God's Word is more powerful than man's.

Our Refuge.
David knows exactly where his help and refuge is.  They are in the Lord.
He can seek God for all the protection and help he needs.

Where is our help?

Is our prayer to God offered respectfully?

Is our prayer a reverential,  sacrificial form of worship?

Is our prayer for the protection of our hearts from ourselves and from others?

Our we as sure as David that God is our true help and refuge?

3 Christmas Hats - A Dose of Encouragement

Many years ago in a far off land......

Well it is true!
It was over 25 years ago,and it was in America which is a long way from Northern Ireland.

Many years ago in a far off land a young father was shopping in a really large shopping mall when he got lost......

No sorry that's another story!

Many years ago in a far off land a young father was shopping in a really large shopping mall when he saw something that he just could not resist buying for his 3 young children.

It was December and so it was getting close to Christmas time and in that shopping mall there was a stall where someone was selling Santa hats.

Now these were not just ordinary Santa hats, they were personalised Santa hats.


This father thought his children would love to have Santa hats with their names in glitter so he (probably spending more money than he should) bought three hats:

one for Jonathan, one for Daniel and one for Linda.

If you look closely at the picture above you will see a school photo of the 3 kids at roughly the ages they were when these hats were bought.

The hats come out each Christmas and it just would not feel the same without them we have got so used to propping them up together each year and always think back to when they actually fitted on the kids heads.

In our family, Christmas would just not be the same without remembering something else too.

Yes we give and receive presents,  eat a large turkey dinner and gather together to enjoy each other's company but the most important thing is:

Thinking back to the marvellous event of over 2,000 years ago when Jesus was born.

We know just how much difference it made in our family as each of our 3 children were born and the family grew, but in this new family in Bethlehem there was the biggest difference there could ever be to a family.

They had just welcomed God Incarnate into their lives.

They had just welcomed God Incarnate into their lives

The Son of God became a man and dwelt on earth, He truly was Immanuel - God with us!

Yes, they had just welcomed God Incarnate into their lives and into the world and this was to make the biggest difference the world would ever know.

Today I would love you to look back to those well-known passages of the Bible that tell us the Christmas story and acknowledge that it is actually Christ's story, the telling of Jesus Christ becoming man and joining the people of the world so that at a later time He could give His life to be the Saviour of the world.

Our family know the difference that Christ has made in our lives and we pray that you have allowed Him to make that difference in your lives too.

My God truly be with you.

If you would like to know more about the difference He can make in your life please click on the 3 2 1 video in my sidebar.