Celebrate The Reason for Christmas
On the first week of December, as I made my bullet journal theme, I also made up some goals to complete this month. It's filled with gifts to buy, family pictures and photoshoots to do, bundles of joy, gifts for the youth, and many more. The plan was to buy everything that we needed before the second week of the month ends.
Thankfully, we got the chance to buy everything indeed before the second week ended. We bought bundles of joy supplies, bought the t-shirts, the gifts were delivered as I ordered them online, and I thought everything was right as how I planned them but unexpected things happen. The news said a storm is coming on the 16th and we paid attention but not really that much of preparation was done.
Our electricity was down and so as our internet connection and a lot of bad things happened over the night of December 16. Waking up the next morning, I found out how awful that evening was. The trees were down, the roofs were taken away.
But two days after when we went to the city for my baby's vaccination schedule as I found internet access, I realized there were more towns, cities, and provinces affected. That neighboring town Ubay was devastated, a lot of deaths.
Our church thanksgiving and anniversary event was postponed and on the first week post the typhoon, people begun to panic searching for cash and gas and food and water supply. The province didn't receive an instant help or assistance from the government and people started panic buying. There were long lines here and there. It was actually better to stay at home instead of going out.
My family and I were not anymore in the mood of preparing anything for Christmas because it was dark, we have to save our gas, our power banks, our batteries, and water. Everything was scarce so on Christmas day, the family just slept, no noche buena done, only a few viands were cooked enough for dinner time, we have to do that because there's no electricity and no way to store the food, but the gifts have to be given.
As these items were already bought and delivered prior to the typhoon, I was able to wrap them and prepare everything before Christmas Day. My baby Matti gave the gives to the cousins, everyone had more than one gift and that made the kids happy!
The bundles of joy were given as well to the church families the next day as the church event was pursued a week after, on the 26th. It was a blessing that we have a member who offered his portable generator to be used by the church so we had electricity in the church that night.
Aside from bundles of joy, my husband and I gave school supplies for the Sunday school kids and t-shirts for the youth. The shirts were printed with Sola Fide Through Faith Alone.
Christmas celebration is still realized this year indeed and what's important is that we know the reason why we are celebrating that day. It's because a child was born. That child is Jesus our savior, He is God himself becoming man to save us from the penalty of sin which is death, an eternity of damnation apart from Him. His life, death, and resurrection is our living hope and because of this, we celebrate and the gifts we give are just overflows of this great blessing of grace!
Belated Merry Christmas everyone!
xoxo,
momentswithmatti
Mother | Boholana | Cebu | Philippines | Travel | Photography Enthusiast | Calligraphy | Art | Crypto Noob
That's so precious! Look at those tiny smiles 🙂