The First Christmas Night [Book Review & Giveaway]

*The winner is Tracey D. Congrats, Tracey! Be looking for an e-mail. Please respond within 48 hours or a new winner will be chosen.*

You guys! I am so excited to be reviewing The First Christmas Night by Keith Christopher, Illustrated by Christine Kornacki. Plus, I get to giveaway one copy to one of you! Eeek!

I knew nothing about this book when I was first offered an opportunity to review it. All I knew was we love books in our home, I want to start Christmas traditions of our own around here, and I was told this book is The Night Before Christmas with a twist.

Now, I'm not sure about you, but I've always loved the sing-songy poetry of The Night Before Christmas. I was so excited to hear someone had taken the story of Jesus' birth and wrote it in prose appealing to a child. I wasn't even phased the age recommendation for this book is 4-8. Something in me knew it could appeal even to a 20 month old.

I was not disappointed.

In fact, Zoë has now made it a bed time ritual asking for "Jesus", by which she means she wants to read The First Christmas Night. And if she can get her hands on it during the day, even better! This makes my heart leap for joy as she is constantly being exposed to the story of our Savior's birth. She is constantly being exposed to the reminder He came down to earth as baby - helpless, completely dependent on someone else. Though the story may not reach that far with her now, laying the foundation through a book constantly exposing her to the truth of the beginning of what He did for us brought me to tears on a couple of occasions as we read it together.

And I mean, look at her saying cheese for the camera. But that book, it won't be easily taken from her hands, not that I generally try to. Even the pictures appeal to her, which isn't her general "go to" in a book. She'll look but quickly pass them up. I've found her closely inspecting the art work in this book at times.

Which leads me to how much I love the art work. Kornacki really does an excellent job of drawing images appealing to all ages! Even my artist husband has a high appreciation for the workmanship throughout.

I am almost certain this book has made it's debut into our Christmas traditions for years to come. I'm not even sure I'll be allowed to stow it away after Christmas is passed.

And because I'm about honesty, as is the sponsoring company, I want you guys to know there was only one aspect of the book which slightly bothered me: if you're keen on historical accuracy, the three wise men didn't find Jesus until he was around two years of age. However, the book portrays the typical story we we hear where the shepherds and wise men find Jesus while he is a new born.

Other than that, I give this book a raving review from our household! I'm pretty sure many of you would love to get your hands on a copy.

Speaking of which, one of you can get your hands on a free copy by entering my giveaway!

I have one copy of The First Christmas Night to give away. The giveaway is open to US residents with a physical address (no P.O. boxes, sorry!) age 18 and up. It begins today, Tuesday, November 19, at 12 am CST, and will close on Monday, December 2, at 12 am CST. The only mandatory entry for the giveaway is to leave a blog comment; I would love if you'd answer this question: Do you have any Christmas Traditions you have carried over or started with your family? If so, what? The winner will be randomly selected via Rafflecopter. They will be announced in an addendum at the top of this post, as well as on the Rafflecopter form, within 48 hours of the giveaway's close. I will also contact them via e-mail. (Please ensure you use a valid, working e-mail address to enter with on the Rafflecopter form.) The winner will have 48 hours to contact me via e-mail at mylifestidbits@gmail.com to claim their prize. I will need the winners full name and physical  address to forward to giveaway sponsor so they can mail the winner their prize. For any other information regarding giveaways hosted on my blog, please visit the official giveaway page.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

"Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

It's Friday

And today that means I'm going to participate in Five Question Friday (#5QF on Twitter).

1. How often should adults have birthday parties? Gee. I honestly don't know. Personally, I prefer to celebrate them in a small way. Cake, maybe a special meal with those closest to you. So at this present time, that would mean me, Ben and Zoë. If my immediate family were here, we'd likely celebrate it with them but not on the day of. Because I reserve the day of for my own family now. That's the way I like it :) And Ben agrees.
2. What was your room decorated like when you were a child? Honestly, we weren't really allowed to hang stuff on the wall so the walls were bare. Literally. (Well, that is until my sister and I decided since would couldn't make holes we would tape posters up. So, of course, we hung pictures of our favorite boy bands and the like. Your normal middle school girl type stuff.)n However, it was painted a pastel yellow which sort of compensated for the bare walls. I shared a room with my little sister and for a while we shared a bed. BUT, after a couple years of that my parents bought us matching twin size beds and this old timey quilt with a little girl on it. (Matching of course.) Not anything I would pick. But it was a bed. So I'm  not going to complain. 3. Do you have any traditions for Easter? If so, what? And do you have a why behind that? As of yet, no. Because of finances we haven't done anything for each other. And since Zoë is only a year old, which means she was only a couple weeks old last Easter, we haven't started any with her either. Ben and I were talking about this the other night *cough* I asked this question *cough* and there were a couple of ideas we threw out there. One, let me say that I would love to continue what my mom did for us with our Easter baskets each year. Easter holds a lot of meaning for me because of my belief in Christ. Though the cross plays a huge part in that belief, without the resurrection, which is what Easter celebrates, the cross is meaningless. That said, my mom always made sure that our baskets tried to somehow convey this very important meaning. To get a better idea of what this can look like, you can hop on over to my sister's blog, A Dollop of My Life, where she wrote a great post on how she did this for my two (almost 3....YAY!) nephews last year. Second, apparently Ben loves the chocolate bunnies and wants to make sure our kids get one every year. (Of course, we did not buy one for Zoë this year.) I'm talking, that is the only thing related to Easter we have bought/done every years since we've known one another, four years. I have to say I find this hysterical because if you were to ask Ben, who is a history buff, where Easter originated, you would get an approximately 15 minute speech about how 1) he will not tell his children this story until they are older and 2) it's a pagan holiday that was turned Christian in some weird way or another. I don't know. He's told me twice. Point #2 is all that I can remember from what he's told me. It's actually kind of gross and inappropriate so...I'm pretty sure I'm glad I don't remember. And the bunny somehow ties into that. Yet, that choclate bunny. Oh that chocolate bunny. The minute the candy comes out and we're at the store together I hear, "Hey, the chocolate bunnies...You want one?" (aka I want one but don't want to just ask for myself. Ha!) We also discussed how we think it would be fun to do an Easter Egg hunt. Whether with a group of people or do our own or both, we're not really sure. But Ben said that was something he really enjoyed and would love to do for our kids. As far as preparing for Easter, because Zoë will be a little older where she will be able to start grasping small bits of an entire concept next year, I'm hoping to find some decently priced resurrection eggs this year. My sister also recommended a couple of books this year and one of them, The Story of Easter by Patricia Pingry, is a board book that I plan on purchasing also. For now, that's the plan. I'm sure it's apt to be tweaked a little, but the general idea is to keep it Christ-centered.
4. Do you get Good Friday off? If so, any plans? Umm...for the time being, I get no days off. The hubs helps out some when he's home but that just usually means I'm off somewhere else cleaning or cooking or what not while he's watching the babe. Thus, no plans. It was just a normal day for us.
5. Did you wear hats & white shoes to church on Easter? (Or was that just in the South?) Well, I am from the South. The deep South. As in you almost can't go much more before you're in the gulf, deep South. And we never wore hats. Maybe because that wasn't something my mom liked. Or our budget just didn't allow for it. Or a little of both. I'm not really sure. White shoes? Yes ma'am! every year. With white socks if need be. Will I do this for our children? Probably not. I'm not all in to dressing up for Easter. Nor is it really fitting into our budget. It's just not something I really care about. And there you have it. If you wanna join in, hop on over to Mama M.'s blog by clicking her lovely 5QF button I posted above. You can paste your link over there!

Rolling in the New Year...

...on a fail!

Well...I would say so. You see, I've been wanting to update my blog template and in the mean time, I was just going to revert it back to some random, unoriginal blogger template.

So I started up a TESTER blog. One where I could leave my actual blog untouched, all the while seeing what the templates actually look like. Because let's face it: I'm a planner with some things, and when it comes to this blog, well, I like to know what it's gonna look like to someone else before I project it out to the WWW.

And you wanna know what happened?

Those three measly posts I made, on a whim, brought in 42 hits to the hours old testing site. HA!

While this lil' ol' blog: 17.

Yes, please, hold your applause! I might just start asking for sponsors!

(All joking aside, I'm seriously NOT asking for pity. I'm LITERALLY laughing at the irony of it all. Especially because the following, after this said rabbit trail, is what I had planned to come on here to write and just had to type out my thoughts about the irony of a baby, testing blog getting more hits than where I actually come to hash out thoughts.)

Ahem.

Now that I've recomposed myself...

With the new year brings myself reading many posts of reflections, new year's resolutions, and thoughts/hopes/dreams of what this future year might hold.

I don't know why, but I've never been one to write, make or hold to new year's resolutions. If I make a "resolution" I am usually being stared in the face by my own demon(s) and begging God to help this weak, desperately in need of His strength, broken person and asking He help my heart remain in a posture of praise and thanks for His unconditional love, unfailing grace, and never-ending mercies.

I struggle to sit, purposefully, and reflect on my life because I know I will be digging up graves of just how depraved I am. And yet, God, in His infinite wisdom and grace, is helping me to do so more and more so I might lean on Him more and more.

Because let's face it: being reminded of how weak you are, will either drive you to your knees or make them stiff like the worst case of arthritis seen by any physician on this fallen planet; I'd rather be the first.

And dreaming about this coming year; well, I've learned that my plans, they are not God's plan. (Funny that even though I've known Jeremiah 29:11 since childhood, I still get caught off guard when what I wanted/"planned" to have happen, becomes a completely 180 of reality.) Oh and by the way, now He has me dreaming of children relatively close in age. (By close, I mean around 2 years apart. HA! Time does change a lot. Not to mention, my sweet pea is quite the blessing!)

No, we're not trying yet. But I do mention that I hope our kids will be somewhat close in age. Only time will tell if that is God's desire for our little family of three.

And though the stats I posted at the beginning of this blog don't make me feel like a failure, what does make me feel like a failure is the only time in the past year I have been able to force myself to blog consistently was during the 15 Day Challenge. For whatever reason, I wonder how so many moms out there can blog on a consistent basis. Because I for one, with what I perceive to be pressure to be a "good blog mom", feel I'm supposed to blog daily, and if I don't...well, I might as well not.

I know this isn't true.

But I feel that pressure. From where, or whom, I'm honestly not sure.

It's more than likely myself. I am my own worst enemy. (Aren't we all?)

And so no matter where it does come from, I just wanted to let you guys know, that I may or may not post every day. And there may be some days that I crank out more than one post.

I don't know what the new year brings, but I do know that I'm ok with whatever it ends up looking like. (On this blog and in my real life.) Because that is how I need to think to give myself relief to live a life that is only for His glory with the enjoyment of this little, tiny space of the interweb just for me to babble and grapple and rejoice and hash out thoughts He has graciously allowed me to continue. And that is how I want to live daily knowing that I don't know what today brings exactly but I do know that He is in control, asks me to rely on Him, and I am far too weak to do life without Him.

*WHEW*

Felt good sharing that with you.

And now for something upbeat :)

Because the hubs and I haven't started any, I literally mean ANY, traditions of our own in regards to holidays, birthdays, etc, we decided we would bring in the new year with two new traditions.

Of course, being the good Louisianians that we are, they are centered around the food we will eat on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

Food is essential to being someone from Louisiana. I mean, we do have the best :)

So, we were sitting around yesterday when I mentioned that I would like to start our own tradition for New Year's Day.

We immediately remenisced the age old cabbage and blackeye peas meal. I'm not in love with it, but my mom does make some pretty mean cabbage. Probably the only cabbage I will ever eat. Ben, however, completely turned his nose up to it. And that, my friends, says a lot because he hardly ever I'm pretty sure I have yet to hear him actually complain about something he's eating. Even if it's not his favorite.

Long story short, considering I've now sufficiently typed your eyes off with the rest of this post, we couldn't competely whiddle it down to just a singular meal.

Thus our New Year's Eve/New Year's Day tradition has begun:

1. We kicked it off last night with good ol' homemade guacamole and velveeta cheese dip. And let me tell you, it was YUMMY!!
2. Today, we will be enjoying black eye peas, maybe one day homemade, but I just didn't have it in me this year to do home made so canned will have to do. And I'm hoping they're good because Wal-Mart was out of my favorite: Trappey's. Along with the peas, we will have some sort of chicken, this year it's chicken nuggets (Healthy. I know!), and salad. As beverage with said meal, we bought sparkling grape juice and for dessert we're making good ol' Root Beer Floats!

Ahh!! Sounds so good I can hardly wait.

And that get's me excited. That we're starting to form our own traditions. Because, we haven't had a holiday to ourselves yet to do such a thing. And thinking about that kind of makes me sad.

Funny I should say it, but it makes me hope that we're jump starting the new year by turning over a new leaf in our marriage/family and that this will be the first of many, many traditions over the years.

If you've stuck with me until now, bless you!

May your new year be one filled with memories and opportunities to praise the One who has given you life. 

No matter the circumstances.

Happy New Year!