Mountain Musings

From Our Home to Yours...

"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." Isaiah 7:14

Thank you for being such faithful blog readers and commenters these last 11 years! Is anyone out there who started reading back in the beginning in December, 2004?

How did you first find Mountain Musings and how long have you been keeping up with us? And what part of the world are you in? That would be interesting to know!

As 2015 comes to a close, our family would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you back here on the blog in 2016...

~Deb

Holly Jolly Bingo ~ Winners!

Yay! After 10 days of playing this little Christmas game, we have our 2 winners!

Eliza L. has won the Amazon gift card!

Kelsey D. has won the Red Letter Words gift card!

Congratulations to them both! Thank you to everybody for playing along this year, I've a lot of fun with it as always. :) There were lots of people very close to winning - you'll just have to enter again next year and try once more!

I hope you all had fun, and the rest of your Christmas preparations and celebration will go well!

~Sarah

 

Holly Jolly Bingo ~ Day 10

Happy Day 10 of Holly Jolly Bingo! We have entered the double digits of days. :) And here are the day ten words:

Does your family send out Christmas cards each year? I am trying to get some cards ready to send out this year to both Eric's side and mine as well. Still lots to go!
And do you make Christmas cookies every year? So far this year, I've made a batch of cookies to take into Eric's coworkers, and then I just made another batch yesterday. I still need to make some more traditional cut-out cookies or something, though. The kind I made yesterday were called Orange Creamsicle Cookies, but I didn't have the white chocolate chips it called for - time to substitute semisweet chips! They still taste good, I like the combo of orange and chocolate. :)

Presents are interesting this year - suddenly my family has doubled! :) Eric and I had a wrapping party last night and got a large portion of our presents all ready for next week. Fun! There are still a few items on their way here, but I think the majority of our shopping is done as well. How about you - are your presents all set for your celebration next Friday?

~Sarah

 

Holly Jolly Bingo ~ Day 9

We are on Day 9 already! Wow! I know some of you said you're getting close, let's see if you can get any closer today:

On Sunday evening, Eric and I drove over to a program a church was putting on called Walk Through Bethlehem. It was quite crowded when we were there, as there were many children interested in petting the camels, goats, sheep, and donkey. :)
There were "shops" in the little town, and in several, they had samples of things you could bring as gifts to the baby Jesus in the manger later on. Farther along the path, past the town and animals, there was a star lit up over the manger scene.
As we stood there, a lady was reading out passages of Scripture pertaining to the birth of Christ. When she came to the part about the wise men, three men came up with their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. There were some very cute little toddlers giving their little gifts they had gathered in the village, too. :)

On the way back to the car, we stopped for free hot chocolate and cookies. Yay! It was a fun evening and made good memories!

~Sarah

 

Holly Jolly Bingo ~ Day 8

Good Tuesday morning! How many words do you have left now? Let's see if you can cross some more off today!

Do you have a special sweet potato dish that you make for Christmas? I have a recipe for sweet potato casserole that I found on AllRecipes.com years ago that has been our go-to dish for Thanksgiving and lots of times Christmas as well. Instead of the typical marshmallows on top, it has a pecan/brown sugar streusel. It's really yummy!

I made it for Thanksgiving this year...here I am in the kitchen whipping it up before we headed over to Eric's family's house. Eric obligingly took a photo of me so I could send it to Mom. :)

Here's the recipe if you want to try it, I do add a dash of cinnamon to it as well:

Sweet Potato Casserole II

~Sarah

Holly Jolly Bingo ~ Day 7

Good morning, everybody! Did you have a good Lord's Day? :)

Here we are again, back at the ol' bingo game. Day seven, and the words are:

Here is our "mistletoe." No, it's not quite authentic, but it was labeled as a kissing ball in the store. It is hung centrally in our house, so basically you have to pass beneath it wherever you want to go. Very handy, isn't it? Not that we especially need mistletoe, much to the chagrin of certain siblings. ;)

Do you hang mistletoe at your house?

~Sarah

 

Holly Jolly Bingo ~ Day 6

It's already the end of the week, can you believe it?! Here we are at Day 6, and I hope this first week of bingo has been enjoyable for you all!

I want to thank all the friends who have entered the game this year - you all broke the record for participation! We have a total of 31 blog readers playing along - wow! Thanks so much for making this such a fun event for me to run. 

And finally, after 1 full week of dilly dallying, I am announcing the prizes that you all are playing for. :) First player that posts a comment saying bingo and that has been confirmed to be a winner will have first choice between these two, and the second player to bingo will get the prize that is left.

Prize #1:

A $25 gift certificate to Red Letter Words, a company where we have bought several favorite prints. You can get several Christmas selections for $25 and under, or if you're a subscriber to their newsletter, wait for one of the snap sales and buy a larger print for 1/2 price! 

Prize #2:

A $20 gift card to Amazon.com - you can get just about anything you can think of on Amazon. :)

As with all the other years, I am taking off Sundays from posting new words, so I will see you back here bright and early on Monday morning!

~Sarah

 

 

Holly Jolly Bingo ~ Day 5

It's already Friday, the fifth day! Today's words are:

I love to celebrate Christmas, with all the fun traditions and times with family and friends. But Christmas is primarily a celebration of Christ's birth here on earth, and I don't ever want to forget that! He was sent to save His people from their sins and came down to earth in human form, born as a little baby in the city of David. I hope this time of year is a reminder to you of the reason why Christ came - because we need a sinless Savior, who bore our sins on the cross and clothes us with His perfect righteousness when we repent and believe in Him. As one of the words yesterday said, what GLAD TIDINGS! :)

~Sarah

 

Holly Jolly Bingo ~ Day 4

 It's Thursday, and day four of our bingo game. Having fun so far? :)While decorating for Christmas here in my new home, I kept up the tradition of winding garland around the stair railing and adding some red bows and ornaments. The one difference? I used colored lights instead of white! :)

A verse from the Scripture for today:

Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

~Matthew 1:23

~Sarah

 

Holly Jolly Bingo ~ Day 3

Moving on, we have reached Day #3! How many words will you get today?

Yesterday Eric's family took me to tour the Georgia Governor's mansion, which was decorated all downstairs with many different trees - probably some firs in there. :) This year's theme was honoring all the former governors who lived in that house, so there was a tree dedicated to each one. Here's the tree for Jimmy Carter:

The outside of the mansion had wreaths in every front window, and inside they had a cake replica of the house, including each tiny wreath:

As we entered the house, the governor's wife was at the front door, personally greeting each visitor with a handshake. Of course, to get to that point, you had to pass through the bomb-sniffing dogs, metal detectors, purse searches, and bodyguards. ;)

After finishing the tour, everybody went downstairs to the ballroom to enjoy a bit of a party, with cookies and a choir singing holiday songs. There were more trees down there, as well as a nativity scene with figures of Mary and Joseph.

It was a very enjoyable excursion! :) Okay, let us all know how many words you have so far!

~Sarah