Merry Christmas from our family to yours! As you can see - our Christmas was an extra special one because we were able to gather everyone on the Triggs side to celebrate the birth of Christ Jesus! (And in the meantime we tried to get a couple good family photos.)

Thoughout Christmas Day I couldn't help but think of the bond of family. As Charles Swindoll says "Home is where life is making up it's mind." Isn't that so true? Each one of the people in our family photo was influenced by a home long ago as well as their current home. And that home truly is where lives are making up their minds. I know that is true of me.

So in light of the celebration of the birth of our sweet Savior Jesus Christ and the family we all were birthed into when we accepted the gift of salvation from Jesus - here's a toast to the sweet baby Jesus and the great Family of God!

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Announcing the birth of Bria Ruth!!! Isn't she just too adorable?! Bria was born to our dear friends, Becky & Chris on December 20th. When asking the proud parents how they came up with the name Bria they further told us that the name Bria means "noble, strong, virtuous." This launched us into a discussion about the meaning of a name.

As some of you may know, the Bible is full of examples of people fulfilling the meaning of their names. Say Abraham for example. Abraham means "Father of a multitude or many nations." How true is this of Abraham? The father of Israel, God's chosen nation and the recipient of one of the most incredible covenants God has given mankind. Abraham truly fulfilled the meaning of his name. And Abraham is just a start. There are many more examples biblically and in real life of the truth behind a name.

All that being said - here is to little baby Bria - may she be a noble, strong and virtuous woman. Lord may it be so!

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I have to admit - I'm a very hard person to embarrass. I will dance around like a fool in front of a ridiculous amount of people and not even bat an eye. But for some reason there are a few things that I do get really embarrassed when doing. One of things is caroling. Now, before I move forward with that thought, I know some of you are thinking, "How can someone get embarrassed about caroling!!! Caroling is such a festive thing to do." Regardless of what you think, I get totally red in the face when singing "Joy to the World" in front of strangers. Which leads me into our previous evenings activity - CAROLING!!! Alan and I were so close to not even going because we were both afraid we would be too embarrassed. But our great friends from our small group convinced us otherwise so we joined them.
Much to my surprise I quickly loosened up and got over this strange fear. Specifically on our last stop we found ourselves at an older couples front door steps singing the ever so popular "Joy to the World" and "We wish you a Merry Christmas." After finishing the older woman concluded our performance with a very joyous "I think that's the best thing that has ever happened to me! I just saw The Messiah and this was 10x better!" Needless to say this made all of us feel so great about our caroling efforts.
So - during this Christmas season I pray that you too might see the joy in making others smile. Here's to fears conquered and Christmas carols sung!!!

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