{"id":15177,"date":"2021-11-22T05:21:45","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T11:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=15177"},"modified":"2021-11-22T05:21:45","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T11:21:45","slug":"thanksgiving-christmas-together-hand-in-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=15177","title":{"rendered":"Thanksgiving & Christmas \u2013 Together Hand in Hand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In big box stores, it\u2019s been “beginning to look a lot like Christmas” for months now. They have touted us with their holiday wares since before Spring ended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On social media, I\u2019ve seen many of my friends skipping right over Thanksgiving and their home is decked out in Christmas glory! A Washington State friend displayed this photo and said \u201cIt\u2019s Christmas at the Goodens for the next 2 months.\u201d An Oklahoma friend posted the next photo and said \u201cWe couldn\u2019t wait another second!\u201d And, Face-timing last week with my Canadian family, I saw what it looks like at their place, 3rd photo. Oh my! That blanket of snow is all it takes to get their Christmas on. I know it well. We lived there in Winnipeg, MB for seven years. Honestly, there is nothing like a white Christmas, with lights sparkling on the snow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, I’m being nostaglic now! I don\u2019t blame anyone for getting their Christmas on sooner than later! But, what if you are one who refuses to buy into Christmas fa-la-la-las until after Thanksgiving? My Fall\/Thanksgiving d\u00e9cor will be up for a few more days \u2013 not enough time to take down and put-up Christmas, but I did manage to pull out my Christmas tubs to see what I have for my little space here in Austin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve come a long way, Baby! Once upon a time when we had a 6-bedroom home in Oklahoma, every bedroom had its own Christmas tree. I was Mrs. Santa to the core. This year, every bedroom (2) will include sweet manger scenes. My, how time changes our needs and wants!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week, what was our norm with my family converging at our\/my home for Thanksgiving has changed \u2013 probably from here to my eternity. We\u2019re going to Rusk, TX for a few days of early Thanksgiving at Epiphany Ranch (Larry and Staci\u2019s place). Then my Austin family will head to Muldrow, OK where Shawntel\u2019s big family (50+ people and their 90+ year old grandmother), will have their traditional celebrations together. Back at home in Austin on Thursday, I\u2019ll be taking down Fall d\u00e9cor and replacing it with Christmas d\u00e9cor. This will probably be my new normal. But, since I\u2019m subject to change daily, I\u2019m actually rolling two of my favorite celebration seasons into one in the spirit of gratitude. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of us want to embrace each season and make it as memorable as we can. We want to savor Fall with the leaves changing colors, pumpkin spice aromas and coffee, autumn d\u00e9cor. We want to remember the first Thanksgiving and the pilgrims, and we want to make the Fall season special and meaningful. But, what’s the big deal? Why should it matter when we begin to celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas? What matters is that we open our hearts and our homes to gratitude at Thanksgiving and to the joys, delights, and celebrations of Christmas. Actually, both seasons could easily be merged together as one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Both beautiful seasons tend to make us more thankful and kinder, while expressing gratitude for God’s blessings and for celebrating Christ\u2019s birth. Joy to the world; the Lord has come. It really is the most wonderful time<\/strong> of the year. I\u2019m already allowing myself to get caught up in the miraculous Christmas story as I set out my many nativity scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve honed into this beautiful journey that will lead to the most Holy Day when our Savior was born \u2013 and, it would have been okay if I started way back in July! After all, it\u2019s more than a season or a day. It’s our reason for unspeakable joy, indescribable love, and amazing sacrifice \u2013 that the ONE Who placed the stars in the sky and Who knows them all by name — chose to come to this earth as a little baby to be with me, understand me, live in this world like me. He totally gets me and my frailties, but better yet, He is my all powerful, awesome God. That’s plenty reason to celebrate all year round!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the next time we’re tempted to complain about “too early”, let’s turn that around and welcome the reminder to thank God for the Reason for the season. It\u2019s just too great a story to compact it into only one celebration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In big box stores, it\u2019s been “beginning to look a lot like Christmas” for months now. They have touted us with their holiday wares since before Spring ended. On social media, I\u2019ve seen many of my friends skipping right over Thanksgiving and their home is decked out in Christmas glory! A Washington State friend displayed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15618,22147,22148,15622,15619],"tags":[1463,1210,3315,1769,251,537,18050,1034,40,1469,22151,22149,22150,4260,775],"class_list":["post-15177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas","category-early-christmas","category-not-too-early","category-reason-for-the-season","category-thanksgiving","tag-autumn","tag-blog","tag-celebrations","tag-christian","tag-christmas","tag-christmas-story","tag-converge","tag-fall","tag-inspiration","tag-leaves","tag-memorable","tag-not-too-early","tag-one-celebration","tag-reason-for-the-season","tag-thanksgiving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15177"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15183,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15177\/revisions\/15183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}