Christmas Time

Christmas time is here! By that I mean, the time of year when I have no concept of time. I generally find myself waking and starting my day somewhere between 9 and 10 am. I think lunch happens anywhere between 2 and 4 and who knows about supper. Bedtime is also very obsolete. Last night, 9 of us siblings were all gathered in the Yellow Room playing "Bang" and reading books at midnight and considering another round or two. The 9 siblings included everyone apart from Ken, who had a physics final today and thus chose to be responsible and go to sleep at who-knows-what-time-because-he-disappeared-a-few-hours-before-we-noticed. :) I love Christmas time! 

Another wonderful thing is that all 10 of us are home. Well... all 10 of us were home. Ken's off taking his finals and Kurt went somewhere too. Yesterday was our Kohl family Christmas! It started with us all waking up at various times... a couple of the siblings were watching Tin Tin when I came down stairs and I joined them. At some point in the middle of it Rose made pannekuken and one by one more siblings emerged. I think at some point later Rose made stuffing for our turkey dinner later and the left over stuffing became our lunch. I think it was early afternoon when we commenced gift unwrappings and it must have been close to 4 when we were finished and there were various siblings taking naps, playing Age of Empires, and I think Kyle was off dreaming up ways to create mini weapons of mass destruction. Right now he's gluing pages together from a vintage English textbook from the 50s so he can hallow it out and hide his "Materials for building weapons."





In 20 minutes (which really means nothing to us) we'll play Clueless or Bang for who knows how long.. hours most likely.  Clueless! That's another thing that happened. We spent hours, perhaps even a whole day, making our own Clue Board of our house. 

The whole premise is that a houseguest left upset and one must now find out who did, where, and with what. The suspects being the 12 members of the Kohl household and the the rooms being 12 of the most frequented rooms in the house. The "items" (weapons?) include such things as a squirt gun, box of matches, broom, 2 X 4, frying pan, wooden spoon, ipad... etc. (There's about a dozen). 

It's incredibly fun! The last game we played I was pretty sure it was Mom in the Basement with the Hammer, but it turned out to be Kyle in Kit's room with the squirt gun. Heh :)

Another thing about Christmas Time is that since there is no concept of time and there's always something to do and someone to do something with, it is easy to neglect one's time alone with God. We all love Jesus and we have talks and encourage each other this way and that. It's easy to not miss Jesus, but at the same time, something is missing. I don't always actively notice a spiritual dryness or ache of need for God when I'm home. Well, usually I don't. But this time around, after crash landing at the end of my semester, it's way more obvious to me when I don't spend straight up alone time with Jesus. But home is perfect for that, also. While the house is busy and fun and exciting, there are pockets of rest and peace and calm and quiet.