Charity Never Faileth...My Holiday Post

Well, another year is coming to an end and I have to say it has been a pretty traumatic year for my family and me.  To be honest, I wasn't really looking forward to Christmas.  I didn't even bother to go out to the garage to dig my tree out until December 16th, because it just didn't seem like we could celebrate the season with any kind of joy.  Then I realized that my kids needed to feel something from their parents besides intense stress.  So I forced myself to set up the tree and to decorate the house a little.

It took a few days of looking at an empty tree for me to find my Christmas spirit.  Once the Holiday Fever finally made its way through the doom and gloom and depression I have been feeling lately, I was able to embrace it and use it to help shoo away the fog of unemployment and financial struggles that has plagued us for a while now.  It was nice to have something to look forward to.  More importantly, it was nice for my boys to have something to look forward to. 

Honestly, this has been the most difficult Christmas I have ever faced in my life.  The move we made to our new state was supposed to be a fresh start.  Instead, it has turned into something akin to a modern day Grapes of Wrath story.  The joy and excitement we felt when we landed here was quickly replaced by fear as our best laid plans fell apart in front of our eyes.  Despite the rough start, we have held out hope that we could make it in this unique, homey town if fate would just give us a break and a fair shot at building a life here. Five months later, we are still struggling.  And wondering if we are complete idiots for daring to make such a big life change.  I'm sure there are a few of our family and friends who have already made that assessment and are wondering what has taken us so long to come to the same conclusion. 

The thing is...I still believe with all of my heart that moving here was the right thing for my family.  For six months before we came here, there was not a day that went by that my heart and mind didn't tell me that my family would thrive in this new environment.  My spirit spoke to me in dreams and in prayers and everytime I tried to look at a different spot on the map as a relocation possibility, my inner being would all but scream that I needed to quit trying to avoid what I already knew.  How do you ignore those kinds of thoughts and feelings and persisitent naggings?!  I don't know about you, but I can't.  Every good decision I have ever made in my life has come at the end of a long struggle with me trying to ignore and push away a force I could not explain, then ultimately giving in and accepting the message the universe was trying to send.   So it made sense to me to finally quit fighting this path too.  And when I quit fighting and accepted the possibility that the change might be good, things kind fo fell in place for us to make the move.  I truly thought we were on the right track.

My husband felt okay about the move too, but he was much more reserved in his enthusiasm.  He is no longer behind me on this one.  He is struggling.  He doesn't hate here, but so far he isn't finding a lot to love.  In his defense, he is not good with change.  I knew that about him, but hoped his desire to leave our old home state would be strong enough to help him overcome his fears.  Of course, it didn't help that he was lied to about the job he was supposed to start upon our arrival.  Having that rug yanked out from under him while he was trying to settle in a new place with his family left him unsettled and angry.  Who tells a guy he has a job, knowing he's relocating his family and then changes his mind without calling to tell anyone?  It doesn't matter anymore.  We are here and we have decided to try to make it work.  We just thought we would have things working before Christmas. Which is where I started this post a few thousand words ago.

Making it work here has truly been the fight of our lives.  So we were not spiritually or mentally prepared for Christmas.  Nor were we financially prepared.  Gainful employment is hard to find here...not for lack of trying though.  Big Man is working, but at a minimum wage job that is far beneath his capabilities and with earnings that are far below what we need to survive.  We had no money for gifts for the kids.  But we had a long talk with them about making sacrifices and we really tried hard, once we finally got our minds and hearts where they needed to be, to focus on the reason we celebrate Christmas and the birth of Christ.  The kids were doing okay with the fact that Christmas was going to be very low-key this year.  Then the miracles started happening. 

Our church family quickly rallied around us, offering rides to Scouts, sending job leads, doing what they can to help us feel like we are part of the community.  As Christmas approached, we were surprised by a Secret Santa this year who did the 12 Days of Christmas.  The boys tried hard to catch them each night as they left a fun treat at the door and it inspired them to look for a way to give to someone else instead of focusing on their own desires.  We were able to share an unopened toy from one of my product reviews with someone whose boys will love the gift and my kids were overjoyed that they were able to brighten someone else's holiday.  Then...we had another Secret Santa!  I know!!  They came bearing bikes, coats and much needed shoes, with the request that we not tell our boys the gifts came from them, but from us.   I don't know how they even knew about our situation.  Their generosity left me in tears.  THEN...another Not So Secret Santa showed up at our door on Christmas Eve with boxes of food and gifts that left me beyond speechless!  More tears (actually it was the out and out sobbing, blubbering, ugly kind of crying), more amazement and more wondering why we were found worthy to be on the recieving end of such kindness from people we barely know.  THEN...little surprises in the mail came as relatives sent cards filled with checks and gift cards to help us with our other needs.  I have never been so grateful and felt so humbled in my entire life.  

Even still, I sit here crying.  I had been praying for miracles, expecting a job to come through, I guess.  What I received instead was an amazing lesson about humility and gratitude that I will never, ever forget.  My fear and sense of hopelessness was replaced with a renewed belief, that despite all our differences, mankind is generally, inherently good.  And that when given the opportunity, people will look for ways to be charitable and care for their friends and neighbors.  Seeing this side of our new community has shown me that I chose the right place to raise my family.  How could we NOT want to be part of a place that values and actually practices these kinds of charitable acts? 

Thank you, friends, family and people of Boise for giving my family one of the most unforgettable Christmas' we will ever have.  Charity is the true love of Christ...we truly felt the sprit of love and service at work in our lives this season.  Merry Christmas. 

       

Late Merry Christmas Post!

It seems like this entire year has found me constantly running behind, in almost every aspect of my life.  It has been a chaotic, unpredictable, rough and tumble year for Boymom and my family!  So it seems fitting that I should end the year like I started, frantically trying to pull together a Holiday blog post before the year ends and I miss the opportunity to thank my friends, family and my wonderful readers for sticking with me and coming back here from time to time to read my...stuff.

So...how was your Christmas?  Ours, although hectic, ended up being a pretty good Christmas.  This year we really tried to focus more on the spiritual aspects of the holiday and less on the gift giving (lack of money was how that idea started, we decided to run with it!).  The gifts we did give were a lot more practical than in years past and thanks to the generosity of friends, family and a Secret Santa, the boys got more than they (or we) expected.  By the end of Christmas Day, I was feeling pretty grateful and extremely blessed.

I think this year, more so than any in the recent past, I truly felt the Spirit of Christmas in my own heart.  Maybe because I quit focusing on what we didn't have and what wasn't working and started focusing on what I could give back.  It was a joy and a pleasure to watch my boys get excited about our own Secret Santa project, which didn't amount to a whole lot of money, but definitely showed my boys that there are people in the world who are so much worse off than we are.  Little Man almost broke into tears when he realized that there are people who literally have nothing other than the clothes on their backs.  Listening to him pray that night for the well-being of a stranger we met who was living under a tree in a park is a Christmas experience his dad and I will cherish the rest of our lives.

I'm glad we took the time to help my boys understand that it's not about the gifts.  It's about being a good human being during a season when we celebrate the birth of one of the greatest beings ever to walk the earth.

(Ignore the tighty whities and focus on the Nativity, please.  The nativity set, people!!!

Merry Christmas, my dear bloggy friends.  Thank you for your wonderful examples, your kind and caring words, your generosity of spirit and good will.  You have made a difference in this Boymom's life.

Mixbook Review and Giveaway

Are you one of those photo people who constanly has a camera with them, taking pics of everything and everybody (not so hard now that cell phones all have cameras on them!)?  Then do you take those pics and do amazing things with them like scrapbook or make video montages?  You are?  Then I so hate you right now.  Kidding!  I kid.  I'm actually super jealous of your organizational skills and creativity, both of which seem to be just out of my reach since having kids.

If you are one of those people who loves to document life events with photos and scrapbooks and such, then you need to check out Mixbook.  Mixbooks are photobooks that are 100% customizable in that you can choose to start with blank pages or use a template that can be edited to your liking.  Mixbook even has "stickers" that allow you to personalize your pages, giving it more of a scrapbook feel and look.  

Here are the things I like about Mixbook:

• You can choose a "theme" to help you get a certain look, and Mixbook will create a template for your book, so all you have to do is drop in the photos and maybe add a few embellishments. This a great time management tool for someone like me who tends to get stuck when I have too many choices.
• Mixbook also lets you choose and change backgrounds from all of their themes to use on individual pages.  So if you don't like the background that the template gave you on one page, you can create something totally different by pulling individual components from other themes.  If you like a sticker from a Wedding theme, you can add that to your stockpile of stickers.  If you want a background from a holiday theme, you just add it to the background choices that came with your theme.
• You don't have to choose a theme at all!  You can go completely custom and use your imagination to create some amazing and unique designs by pulling different backgrounds and design elements from all of the choices Mixbook has to offer.  Personally, I need help getting started, as the ideas and flow of creativity seem to be stifled lately.  But I have friends who are amazingly talented scrapbookers who would love Love LOVE this feature!
• You can access your Photobucket, Facebook and Picaso accounts right from Mixbook to pull photos from those sites, as well as from your computer. 
• You can invite other people to contribute to your book!  Say you and your siblings are spread out across the country and want to do an "anniversary book" or a "memory book" for Mom and Dad.  Instead of just emailing photos and putting one person in charge of designing and putting the photo book together, each family can log into Mixbooks and do their own page, with their own unique design!  The end result is a book that everybody helped create and it's totally personalized.  And nobody had to travel across 6 states or spend tons of money and time scanning and mailing photos.  The whole family can participate from their own homes!  (Okay, does anyone here have the brother or uncle who always trys to throw in an unflattering photo and then when you bring it up they go find an even MORE unflattering photo?  Because I could totally see that being an issue in some households.) 
• Mixbook has lots of help and tutorials available if you get stuck.  They also let users post their projects for others to view, which is a great resource to help you get ideas for your own book.  There is even  a live chat feature on the site so someone can walk you through whatever issue you might have while you work on your book.   

As an honest reviewer, I do have to say, I was a little disappointed that Mixbook doesn't have more "boy" type themes or stickers.  I mean, I Am Boymom, right?  So most of my pics are about boys.  They have a few sports themes and one for boy babies, but nothing really for boys my age.  Having said that, I'm not sure I have a lot of input regarding how they can fix that issue, other than adding more "boy" oriented stickers, like maybe army guys, legos, bottle caps, pebbles and rocks, skateboards, bikes, cool flame type things, little crawly creatures - you know...boy stuff.  That is really the only downside I have found about Mixbook.  

So basically, Mixbook is like Shutterfly on steroids. So many more choices and options and after some research, I found the prices are lower at Mixbook as well.  And right now?  You can save even more money at Mixbook!  I Am Boymom readers can get an extra 20% off with this code:  BOYMIX20  

Okay, I'll tell you! I wanted to wait until my Mixbook was done to tell you about it.  But it is taking me waaaaay longer than I had planned to finish it because of the custom options that are allowing me to create the "exact" look I want and because I am still sorting through some old photos to put in the book.  But I want to get the giveaway underway so the winner can use their book as a gift if they want to.  So...

Wanna Win a Mixbook Photobook?  The good people at Mixbook are giving away a 20 page, 11x8.5 hardcover landscape photo books with free US ground shipping to one of my readers!  The winner will have until January 31st to redeem the prize code, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post.  The contest will end on November 30th, 12 Midnight MST.  US residents only.  You can gain extra entries by

• Following my blog (if you already follow, just leave a comment saying so)
• Posting the giveaway on Facebook
• blogging about the giveaway
• Tweeting the giveaway on Twitter

Be sure to leave a separate comment for each extra entry so I can count each one. 

**Disclosure - I did not receive monetary compensation for this post.  Mixbook gave me a Mixbook photobook to help facilitiate this review.**

Holiday Wish List Meme

Times are tough for a lot of people right now, right?  We don't have a lot of money any money for gifts this year, so in the spirit of hope and believing in the power of positive thinking, I am entering lots and lots of contests to help supplement the lame homemade gifts I will be giving.  I like this contest, because along with gaining me entry to win, I can share a little bit about myself with my friends and readers. 

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme

Todays Mama (http://bit.ly/tmwishlist) and GameStop (http://bit.ly/gamestop10) are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What is your holiday wish for your family?  To find our path.  We have been struggling for 13 years now to figure out how to become the family we want to be.  We want a healthy family dynamic, a home filled with love and acceptance and the skillset to deal with and overcome adversity without losing our minds and our bearings in life.   And we want to find where we belong.  We want to find the place where we all feel like we're finally home.   

2. What is your Christmas morning tradition?  Sadly, we haven't really established anything really great.  We all just kind of get up and watch the kids open gifts then I get breakfast.  Maybe I'll put on some Christmas music.  We didn't grow up with traditions, so we are still struggling to find one that means something to us.  Maybe that will be my goal this year is to really hone in on a Christmas morning tradition that will have some meaning for our family.  

3. If you could ask Santa for one, completely decadent wish for yourself, what would it be?  To have the money to attend a really great blog conference!  I love social media and I have so many ideas that I need help to flesh out and a blog conference would be the perfect place for me to network with the experts and get their input and advice.  Plus I would finally get to meet some of my great blog friends!  A vacation and a learning experience, all rolled into one awesome package!

4. How do you make the holidays special without spending any money? We try to focus on the real reasons we celebrate the holidays.  On Thanksgiving, we talk a lot about the blessings we've received throughout the year and we take time to thank our Heavenly Father for his love and support.  Throughout the Christmas season we talk a lot about our belief in Christ and really focus on loving and serving others as much as we can to create a spirit of warmth and love.  We try to give gifts that have meaning, rather than gifts that cost a lot of money, like photo albums, handmade cards, homemade treats, etc. 

5. What games did you play with your family growing up?  Ummm...we didn't play games.  We didn't really play as a family at all.  We didn't really have that kind of family dynamic.  My sister and I lived in many different homes with different family members, so there wasn't a lot of game playing, mostly just trying to adjust and survive.  To be fair, when we did live with my mom, she worked 7 days a week, so there wasn't really a lot of time for "playing" or doing stuff with the kids.  But enough of the whining!  I'm trying to leave those issues behind!  I do remember a few times, back when Atari Pong came out, sitting with my step-dad and playing Pong with him for $25 a game.  I KNOW!!  He played for some serious cash!!  Now that I think about it, he had to purposely lose the first game because neither of us kids had $25 to start with!  Wonder why that never occurred to me then?  Ahhh...good times.

6. What holiday tradition have you carried on from your own childhood? Like I said, we never really had holiday traditions growing up.  I guess no matter where we lived or who we lived with it seems like we always made sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles.  And I can always remember being able to watch the Christmas specials and It's a Wonderful Life.  I do make sure my kids make cookies and we watch some of the classic specials and Christmas movies every year, so I guess we do have a tradition!  Yay!!!!  We're making progress! 

7. Where would you go for a Christmas-away-from-home trip? I would love to go to Switzerland and see the Alps and eat lots of hot, melted cheese dishes while I watch the snow fall and listen to milking maids yodel about hot chocolate. Seriously though, Switzerland sounds like a wonderfully, picturesque place to spend at least one Christmas, with it's pretty little villages nestled among huge snow covered mountains.     

8. Check out GameStop (http://bit.ly/gamestop10) and tell us, what are the three top items on your GameStop Wish List this year? 

1) A Nintendo Red DSi Bundle for Little Man, his Gameboy is antiquated and hard to find games for.

2) An Xbox 360 w/Kinect for The Man and Big Brother, because apparently PS2 is no longer relevant in the gaming world.

3) A Wii Fit Plus w/ Balance Board or EA Sports Fitness Bundle for me so I can get my fat butt moving in 2011 to something fun and finally get in shape!

Well, that's my meme.  It actually made me a little depressed.  My goal right now is to be extremely positive, so I really need to work hard this year to create a different experience for myself and my family!  No more mourning the past!  Now you know a little bit more about me, I would love to hear about some of your family traditions and Christmas wishes!!  Maybe I can borrow from some of you to start creating better memories for my kids.  Here's to a happy, memorable Holiday Season!! 

Announcing Patriotic Moments!!

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