Welcome!

We are so glad that you have joined us this year for Christmas! What a wonderful season it is!

To give you a little background about this blog... our church hosts an annual Women's Ministry event early in November called "Holidays Fit for the King." Of course, the King we mean is Jesus. He is, after all, the "King of kings and Lord of lords" (Revelation 19:16).

As part of the event, we gather together early on Saturday morning for fellowship, breakfast, and a devotional talk by one of the godly women in our midst. Then we break into workshops. Each lady gets to take two. Topics for this year include: finding joy, budgeting and ideas for being elegantly economical, grief-support, travel, decorating, grandparenting, evangelism, Advent, and online photo albums. You would never believe how beautiful this event is. From the tables, each one decorated for Thanksgiving or Christmas by a lady in our church family, to the faces of the ladies themselves... everything reflects the glory of the Most High and His only Son. (We're taking pictures, so look for them in the coming days!)

This blog came out of a couple of things we've noticed about the event since it first began. Throughout the years, we have found that many, many people want pictures and more notes and more Scripture and more resources. When my friend Susan and I (Norma, the blog administrator) led a workshop a few years ago, we could hardly keep up with the number of requests we got to email information to those who had either attended our workshop and wanted more resources or those who missed the workshop and wanted to know what happened. We were swamped. And a little sad because no matter how much information a speaker presents during the workshop, the true gems of the day always come from comments the women make to one another. The ladies who missed the event lost out on the dynamic interaction that led to even more ideas being shared. Then there's also the fact that no one ever really wants to leave when the event is over -- we could just keep going and going and going. Thus... the Celebrating Christmas blog was born. We're looking forward to sharing ideas and comments and encouragement throughout the entire holiday season.

Now, if we're going to practice what we preach about the Christmas season, we are going to have to keep Christ in the center and family circled around Him. Then comes church and work and school and friends and neighbors. To celebrate Christmas there has to be a little white space on the calendar, so we aren't even going to attempt to do this blog alone.

A group of amazing "Friends" has come alongside to do much of the writing and photography. While you'll hear from me some, you'll be hearing a great deal from some amazing godly women who are willing to share their celebrations of Christmas with us all.

On this blog, you'll see a wide variety of content... photographs, devotionals, Scripture readings, crafts, recipes, gift suggestions, shopping tips, organizational strategies, party themes, decorating ideas and more. We hope it will be both spiritual and practical. But above all we hope it will be full of love and encouragement and bring glory to the Lord.

May this blogspot be a special place for you to gather with "Friends" and be blessed. Feel free to link to this blog. Become a follower. Subscribe. Invite your friends to join us too. And comment... share your thoughts to enrich the posted content. As several of our "Friends" say on their personal blogs, comments are like hugs!

With all that said... Welcome to Celebrating Christmas!!!