Family Home Evening Activity

I was hoping that our family home evening activity tonight would include my family all gathering around me and offering unlimited, extremely helpful suggestions for the girl's camp bishopric skit that I have once again been commissioned to write. Apparently my first skit attempt was successful enough to merit an encore. Unfortunately, I am facing a severe case of writer's block or in other words I have no idea what to write. No idea whatsoever and it was pretty much supposed to be written last week.
This exact situation is one of the biggest excuses I use for not writing the novel that I sometimes believe is lurking in my little brain. What if I wrote a book and it was amazing and wonderful and a best seller and the publishing company asked for a sequel and there was nothing else hiding out in my head. Absolutely nothing! What could be worse?
The only thing I can think of that could possibly be more horrible is if my amazing, wonderful, best selling book was so amazing that someone wanted to make it into a movie, but the film company felt that the way I had written my story wasn't quite amazing and wonderful enough for the big screen and they wanted to totally change the underlying theme that I had so purposely and painstakingly developed (as in the movie version of the Christmas Shoes) or wanted to completely change the ending of the book (as in the movie version of My Sister's Keeper). That is reason enough to never ever become an author.
Wow, this blog has totally gone off on a tangent.
Back to Family Home Evening - the male members of the family felt that a trip to the local theater to view the blockbuster film "The Prince of Persia" would be a much better use of their valuable time tonight. While the movie turned out to be better than I had expected, my mind is now full of visions of a bishopric brotherhood waving magic daggers and defying death while jumping off of amazingly tall buildings accompanied by a scantily dressed young woman and a suicidal ostrich who drinks diet Coke and eats buttered popcorn. At least I finally have an idea to build on and I'm pretty sure if I run with it there won't be a third skit to write next year.

Today I am thankful for

bonding time with my youngest son.
air-conditioning.
cheaper family night movie tickets at Cinemark plus free popcorn.

The Friend Magazine

Two years ago when I renewed our church magazines I decided that we probably didn't need to receive the Friend magazine any longer. The Friend is the church magazine published for children. My youngest child was 14 at the time and I felt like we would be fine with just the youth and adult magazines. Every month for the entire year my youngest son would lament each time the church magazines arrived, "Why don't we get the Friend anymore. I really like to read the Friend." So the next time our subscription ran out I added the Friend back on. It has arrived with the others every month and I have placed it in the magazine rack by my chair where I read each morning. I don't think the son even knows it's there most of the time. As I was planning Family Home Evening yesterday I was thinking about the stories my daughter had used in her talk on Sunday from this magazine and how it is a great resource that I often overlook.


I pulled a few of them out and browsed through them. There were so many great stories and even suggestions on how to use them for a Family Home Evening lesson. I actually ended up passing out a Friend to each family member during FHE and we each chose a story from our magazine to share and expound on. If was interesting to see how we all chose a story that focused on love/service. I really like that the majority of the stories included in this publication now are based on experiences that someone really had. There are so many ways the children of the church are making good choices each day and I'm glad they have a platform to share some of these moments with the rest of us. It's once again time to renew my magazine subscriptions and I'll be including my $8.00 for the Friend. I've decided our family still needs it.

Today I am thankful for

Church Magazines.
Day two of the new and improved teenage mouth.
time to spend with my Relief Society sisters.

If You're Missing Baby Jesus

Tonight my brother and sister-in-law and 3 of their sons brought dinner to my mom's house and came to share family home evening with us. It never ceases to amaze me how much better food tastes when someone else does the cooking. My sister-in-law made wheat chili which sounds kind of strange but was actually quite good. She told me the recipe, but I can't remember what all was in it. According to her youngest son poison was very likely one of the ingredients and it possibly could have killed me, but I'm still alive so I don't think that was on the list.

The mother of the family had brought a book to read for our lesson. It was called "If You're Missing Baby Jesus" by Jean Gietzen and although apparently all of my extended family are familiar with the story, it was one that I hadn't heard before. It is based on a true experience from the author's childhood. Her mother had purchased a Nativity set that year and when she set it up at home there were 2 baby Jesus figures. The mom and the children really worried about the set that was missing the most important part and the person that purchased it and how sad they would be. Finally the mom went to the store and asked them to post a sign with her phone number to call if anyone was missing baby Jesus. The story tells about what happened when someone finally calls. It was a sweet, touching story and my sister-in-law had to pass the book off to her eldest son when she got a little emotional as she was reading it. He finished off the story and of course I cried and was touched by the message that this book shared. However, as often is the case at our Family Home Evenings, someone had to bring up the fact that this child and her siblings were allowed to ride in the back of a pickup truck in below freezing temperatures and that perhaps the parents should have been charged with child abuse. I guess it is nice to know that my home is not the only one where attempts at feeling the spirit and keeping it around for a while are thwarted by a silly boy. I personally enjoyed the story and got much more out of it than a desire to call CPS. Sometimes I feel like my Christmas Season is missing the most important part of the celebration. It's always good to be reminded of the real spirit of Christmas, which is the spirit of Christ. If you haven't read this book you might want to add it to your Christmas collection. A version of the story is available here.

This story reminded me of a friend's blog that I read today and her nephew's insightful placement of the figures in her Nativity Sets. I too want to be close to Jesus and I am glad that Christmas gives me so many little reminders of Him and His love for me.

We ended our fun evening with chocolate chip bar cookies. Mom even got a candle in hers in honor of her upcoming birthday.


Today I am thankful for

reminders of why I celebrate Christmas.
dinner made by someone else.
opportunities to spend time with family I don't get to see as often as I would like.