Monthly Archives: December 2010

December 17, 2010 · 3:07 pm

Cultivating Culture at Christmas

Last night I took a couple of the girls (the one’s who weren’t studying for finals…thumbs down to schools who are still in session even one day past December 15) and Granny to a local Christmas concert. It was a lovely evening listening to a youth chorale sing beautiful Christmas music in the majestic atmosphere of an old brick church complete with stained glass windows. As I sat there taking in the beauty all around me I realized how blessed I was to be raised in a home that appreciated culture and  I am truly grateful for this influence from both of my parents.

Experiencing and appreciating culture adds great value to our lives. I can’t begin to imagine my life without art, music, theater, literature and life long learning.

Art  is a work of creativity and God is the ultimate creator…all we need to do is look around at His creation to see the most amazing drawings, painting and sculptures. They have no rivals. When we see amazing art we are getting a glimpse of the creativity of God. When I see a thing of beauty it takes my breath away and causes my spirit to soar.

Music and poetry inspires us on so many levels…touching our heart and soul. It can cause us to rejoice and praise the Lord, dance, clap, shout, cry, laugh and sing.  I am often transformed to an amazing place of  complete joy, perfect love and glorious peace after listening  to inspiring music. It moves me in a way that nothing else does.

Literature and theater can instantly place us into someone elses story…giving us compassion, insight and even vision and motivation that can change the course of our lives.  Stories and plays can inspire and challenge me to do great things, take me on unbelievable adventures, touch my heart, teach me life lessons and bring me great joy and laughter along with tears.

Truly these things are a gift from God who is the creator of all things beautiful, awe-inspiring and good. I cannot imagine life without them.

It helped that growing up we often lived in large metropolitan cities where the cultural opportunities abounded. I,  however, have raised my family in a place not known for it’s cultural opportunities and yet because I believe that the arts add so much value to life I have chosen to actively pursue these experiences for my children.

Christmas provides the perfect time to cultivate culture in our lives and to influence and teach our children to appreciate the arts.  There are an abundance of cultural opportunities in even the smallest communities during this season. (and at this time of year there are many experiences that are free as well for those of us who have limited resources) 

Some of the ways you can take advantage of these opportunities

  • Find local Christmas concerts, ballets or church performances to attend…they are abundant
  • Check out your local museum…they often have special Christmas displays or exhibits
  • Call around to your civic theater, local high schools or colleges to see if there are any plays being performed (you can almost always find someone doing “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens)
  • Churches often have “living nativities” or special art displays (not to mention if you can find any older more traditional churches to visit the architecture, stained glass windows and sculptures are a cultural experience in themselves)
  • Christmas Home Tours are also prevalent at this time of year and are another great way to enjoy art, architecture and beauty

You can also create an atmosphere of cultivating culture in your own home.  We have been very purposeful with our children in bringing cultural experiences to them (it is also very helpful when your kids are small and may not be able to sit through a “live” performance or production)

  • Listening to classical Christmas music!  While contemporary seasonal music is the mainstay of our Christmas season we are sure to also include classics like The Boston Pops Orchestra.  Their rendition of a Christmas Festival is a staple in our home, in fact it is the first official Christmas song to be played after Thanksgiving.  I love it that my 3 year old son heard the opening strands in the car last week and enthusiastically shouted out – “Mommy! It’s Christmas!”
  • Reading Christmas Classics!  I don’t know why but it always seems so much easier to read books out loud at Christmastime.  I guess the combination of the cozy living room complete with a fire in the fireplace, twinkling Christmas lights, hot cocoa, cold weather that invites you to stay home and the extra family time without the pressure of school and work.  We have an entire box of Christmas books that we have collected over the years that only come out at Christmastime.

  • Watching Christmas Classic Movies!  Again the new Christmas movies are great for family movie night and we enjoy them immensely but there are a few “must watch” movies that are full of value and culture –  White Christmas, A Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol, The Nativity, Miracle on 34th Street and Little Women (ok so it’s not specifically a Christmas movie….but I have decided that it is for us). 
  • Watching Inspirational youtube videos!  Even if you can’t get out to a concert or live in a remote area without access to much culture, thanks to the Internet it can be brought right into your own home.  Every time I find an inspiring or excellent youtube I make my kids sit down and watch it. Here are some of my favorites this year:





  • Encouraging your children to put on a Christmas play of their own.  There are so many great Christmas stories to choose from or they could write their own.  Tell them that they can perform it as a Christmas gift to the family on Christmas day or other larger family get together.  Help them create costumes, gather props and any other support they need but let them create and perform. Besides adding culture and creativity to your life it will be some of the most memorable moments of their childhood.

  • Another easy way to add some art & creativity to your lives is through making homemade Christmas ornaments, Christmas cards and even decorating Christmas cookies.

  • Hosting our annual Mother Daughter Tea is one of our favorite Christmas traditions.  We have been hosting this tea for my girls friends and their mothers for 12 years.  Besides being a lot of fun for everyone it is a fabulous chance to add beauty and culture to our lives.  The fine Christmas china, setting a decorative table, dressing up, practicing etiquette and table manners are all great cultural experiences.  We also give the guests an opportunity to share their talents by singing, playing a musical instrument, reciting a poem or scripture, dramatic reading or signing to a musical selection. It is fabulous!

  • Memorizing the Christmas story from the Bible.  Most every year we take some time in the fall to memorize the story of Christ’s birth out of the book of Luke.  The younger school age children recite it on Christmas Eve.
  • Family Christmas Caroling Night, another family favorite tradition.  Each year we go out and sing Christmas carols at the doors of our friends & family members. It is a great chance to learn classic Christmas carols (and we sing all the verses…as my Mom would say…a song is like a poem and of you don’t sing all the verses you miss the entire meaning), learn to sing and a wonderful family bonding time.  If you did not want to trek all over the city singing you could simply sing around your fireplace, piano or Christmas tree or even go to a few rest homes, hospitals or children’s homes.

It’s not too late to add some culture to your Christmas this year. I would love to hear your ideas for cultivating culture both at Christmas as well as throughout the year.

PS – Tonight we will dress up and head out as a family (minus “the littles”) to a nice dinner and to see the Nutcracker Ballet compliments of my mother. (aka: Granny).  May I suggest that if you are a grandparent looking for a valuable gift to give your grandkids that will last a lifetime (rather than a few weeks or months)…give them a gift of a cultural experience!  And if you can go with them…even better yet!

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Filed under Christmas Season, Inspiration, Life at the Lambdins, Parenting

December 16, 2010 · 11:46 am

Christmas Grace

We called her our “Christmas baby” as she was born in December of the year 1998, the first of our children to arrive during “this most wonderful time of the year”….the magical, bright, joyful, holy and divine Christmas season! 

We called her our “sweet baby” because of her gentle disposition and the heavenly scent that emanated from her tiny little body.  You could hold this precious bundle for hours watching her lips curl up in an uncontrollable smile, be enveloped by the sweet aroma and lulled to sleep by her deep rhythmic breathing. It brought us such perfect peace in our hearts despite the difficult outward circumstances surrounding our family at the time.

….And we called her Grace. 

Yes, we purposely named this child Grace because that particular year we had experienced an abundant outpouring of God’s grace in our lives.  Grace is often defined as….

  • God’s unmerited favor
  •  Loving kindness from God that is not deserved.
  •  A free gift from God.  

We may have a “working knowledge” of grace and understand its basic premise but not until we have personally experienced the ultimate grace that God has freely given  – loving us even at our very worst, pardoning us and paying the price for all our wrongs  and giving divine strength and help through the circumstances of life without us doing anything to deserve or earn that help – can we be filled with amazement and awe that brings us to our knees in humble adoration and gratitude.

While both my husband and I had experienced the saving grace of God decades prior, that year we were shown an amazing amount of grace.

  • His grace was evident in blessing us with this sweet baby and He even extended that grace in the circumstances surrounding her birth. (an undesired scheduled c-section that turned into a flawless natural birth) Despite the prevalent thought in our society today that we have a God given “right” to our desired number of children at exactly the time and season in life that we want to have them…the reality is that none of us deserve or have earned the “right” to the blessings of children.  Truly it is by the abundant grace of God that we were given the gift of another child to love.
  • His grace was miraculous that year in allowing one of our greatest dreams to become a reality.  After working tirelessly  ‘round the clock on starting a Christian high school that reflected our personal philosophy and desire to have a lasting impact on students, the doors to that school opened in the fall.  We did not earn this favor from God, nor did we deserve such a blessing.  It was His grace poured out on all those involved in its inception and in every detail that the gift of Jim Elliot Christian High School was given to everyone who has been, who currently is,  as well as all who will be touched by its ministry.
  • His grace was poured out to us daily as a temporary poverty had settled over our household and He graciously met our every need. We saw God not only provide for our personal needs but also for the financial needs of the school, that almost every month of that first year in operation, faced the reality of closing the doors and yet God came through just in time often through strange, unexpected and unbelievable sources. (in fact the day after we had given birth to “sweet baby Grace” a college friend whom we had not seen or spoken to in over a decade walked into the hospital room and handed us a check for $16,000 that literally saved the school and kept it going in to the new year) Neither us personally or the school as an organization deserved such kindness and yet God graciously and freely gave it to us all.
  • His grace also was working through us at that time to give us the desire to completely forgive those who we felt had greatly betrayed us, turned their back on us, treated us with contempt and left us in a state of despair.  As difficult as it was, we chose to not only forgive but to extend grace, though perhaps not deserved, earned, asked for or even desired, to all those who had wronged us.  Having received such grace from God we could hardly justify not freely giving grace to others.

 Yes, that Christmas season as we rocked our sweet new baby, in the quietness of the night beside the twinkling lights of our tree, we reflected on how God’s amazing grace had truly filled and overwhelmed our hearts and lives.  Realizing how much God had done for us and knowing full well we did not deserve or earn any of it, made us both humble and extremely grateful.

In many ways our life this year is parallel to the year of 1998 – without the blessing of a new baby.  (although we have hopes of God’s favor on us as we pursue another adoption)

  • We are once again embarking on a journey to make one of our lifelong dreams become a reality
  • We are once again in a temporary state of poverty (and yes, we had some prosperous years in between which we affectionately refer to as the “glory days”)
  • We are once again being asked to extend grace to those who carry animosity towards us and others who we fear may be making poor leadership decisions

We pray that these things will once again cause us to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ and that we will experience God’s amazing grace poured out on us in abundance.

At Christmas time we often hear and sing words about – joy, peace, hope and love –  yet the greatest gift that was given to us upon the birth of Jesus was the outpouring of undeserved favor and loving kindness….called grace.   

As we all reflect upon our lives this past year… both the challenging circumstances and the beautiful blessings may the amazing grace of God overwhelm our hearts with humble gratitude and may we extend that same grace to all those who cross our path.

Here’s to experiencing, sharing and spreading some Christmas grace this season and throughout the year!

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Filed under Blessings, Christmas Season, Faith, Life Lessons

December 2, 2010 · 8:54 am

Christmas Greetings from the Lambdins

December 1, 2010

Merry Christmas from the Lambdins!

This is my third year of doing an “electronic” only Christmas greeting and while I really like the old fashion way better (you remember right? envelopes, stamps…they called it mail!), I have resigned myself to this new way of life as it is the wisest use of our resources. (although, I do regret that our family photo is no longer adorning the fridge of so many of our family & friends)  Thanks to email, facebook and my blog many of you are well caught up on “Life at the Lambdins” so feel free to skim this letter or just enjoy the pictures!  You all hold a special place in our hearts & lives and we value this opportunity to stay connected.

We are living the good life!

This month on December 20, Dan and I will celebrate 24 years of marriage and we are still loving life, loving the Lord and loving each other.  We continue to serve, disciple and minister to young people and their families. This is our 25th year in Christian education and we enjoyed an amazing reunion over the summer of students, staff and families from our years at Brookside Christian High School.  Hundreds of students returned and it was an amazing weekend of renewed friendships, faith and our belief in this life changing ministry.  We were beyond blessed at this reunion to be given a gift of a cruise to Alaska which we will take next Spring…looking forward to living the good life!

Dan…a milestone birthday celebrated this year – 50 years of life, continues in his 13th year at Jim Elliot Christian High School as Chaplain & Bible Teacher, coaching volleyball and soccer (and looking to someday returning to coaching football for Daniel), dutifully takes care of all the “g” jobs at home – gas, garbage, grass, grilling & anything gross, is a fabulous & faithful father to his eight children, “like a father” to countless others, an ideal husband and truly a godly man (yes I can attest to the fact that the man he portrays to the world is the man he is behind closed doors)…living the good life!

Beth (the author of this letter who by the way did not get the approval of any family member for commentary made here)…is in a constant state of transition (a classic example: took a break from reviewing the 18 year old daughter’s college applications to change the baby girl’s diaper), recently was released from my position as Director of Development at JECHS and am pursuing a speaking and writing ministry through a nonprofit we are starting called Inspire Ministries, hoping for 2011 to be a year of God opening doors, loving being a Mommy to many different personalities, ages and stages, blessed with an abundance of friends both near & far (loved seeing my high school classmates at our 30 year reunion!), passionate about so many things, thrilled to have been Mrs. Dan Lambdin for now half my life, still trying to accomplish more than is humanly possible (good thing I have an “in” with the Divine)…living the good life!

Michelle…a milestone birthday celebrated – 21, is a junior at King’s College in New York City, using her leadership skills as President of the “House of Truth”, working three jobs to get herself through college, came home for a week at the beach during Spring Break, the entire summer and for a special trip this fall (made it to the big birthday bash for Dad & Amy, attended a high school friends wedding & enjoyed the fall season in Stockton for the first time since 2006), developing lifelong college friendships, loving the city, cooked her first Thanksgiving dinner (and did it while watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade out the apartment window), going to China next summer….living the good life!

Amy…a milestone birthday celebrated – 18, is a senior at Jim Elliot Christian High School, intensely playing volleyball, soccer, powder-puff football as well as swimming (where she just competes for “fun” although you would never know that based on her competitive times & results), got her driver’s license, voted in her first election (our political plan is beginning to pay off…just you wait California in another 10 years there will be 8 Lambdin voters!), applying to colleges, a class of 2011 spirited senior surrounded by fabulous friends…living the good life!

Kristen…a milestone birthday celebrated – 16 (and sadly due to our recent financial setback did not get to go to NYC on the traditional Lambdin 16th birthday adventure…but did she utter one word of complaint or disappointment? No, gotta love this amazing girl!), junior year at JECHS, plays volleyball, powder-puff football and soccer, solid academic student, friend to all, always serving and giving, beginning to look at colleges, celebrating her Rite of Passage in January, loves to cook, clean, decorate and organize, wonderful group of friends…living the good life!

Rebekah…a 15 year old freshman at JECHS (yes we have three high school students and we love it!), playing volleyball, powder-puff football, basketball (yay! A new sport to watch) and soccer, became a licensed soccer referee (along with Amy & Kristen) and loved the job & the money, one grade short of straight “A’s” (do they call that a Navajo flaw?), went to Uganda on a life changing missions trip, involved in Interact Club, leading others with boldness and confidence,  making many new friends and staying close to the old ones….living the good life!

Grace…turning 12 this week and is in 6th grade, now the eldest “in charge” at home every day, becoming a leader and trainer for “the littles”, swim team athlete but took a year off soccer (ok not because she wanted to but I needed the break!), traveled to Washington DC and New York with her Granny in the Spring, crowned a Missionette Honor Star, beginning the babysitter circuit (with lots of experience), enjoying her sweet friends, growing up…living the good life!

Joy…the spunky, spirited, spitfire of a 7 year old in the 2nd grade, to her everything is fun and funny, takes hours to do the simplest of chores as she gets distracted by anything in sight (but she is having fun!), sang the National Anthem at summer swim meet in front of hundreds, swimmer, friends galore, spends her days singing, giggling, playing and acting out wild theatricals (ok I do make her do lessons too!)…living the good life!

Daniel…the 3 year old boy spends his days being one of the following (in no particular order):

  • Walker Texas Ranger
  • Buzz Light Year(“ to the rescue!”)
  • Luke Skywalker
  • Roy Rogers
  • The boy who loves his Mommy

along with playing football, baseball, basketball, soccer or recently golf, has a best friend named Andrew who he would spend every waking moment with if he could, tells everyone his mom is going to buy him two brothers (hmmmm…for those inquiring minds yes we are hoping & praying that the Lord would allow us to adopt two orphan boys from Ethiopia…and yes our greatest obstacle, but not Gods, is the money), every night he prays before dinner…”Lord bless our food and please don’t spank my bottom”. Yup, he is definitely…living the good life!

Christiana…besides being simply the cutest 19 month old baby girl in the world she spends her day following Daniel and Joy (who she has renamed “Roy” and we think it might stick) all over the house, dancing every time she hears music, singing “Oh Happy Day”, playing, smiling, laughing (that deep belly laugh that makes everyone who hears it laugh), being cuddled, loved and hugged by her big family as well as everyone who walks through the door, eating and sleeping as desired. Mmmmm…hands down…living the good life!

We hope that this Christmas season finds you living the good life!  We believe that “the good life” – a purposeful, abundant and then eternal life –  is ultimately found through a relationship with Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord.  Our prayer is that your relationship with Him be real, renewed and refreshed during this Christmas season and throughout the New Year.

If you are local or in the area on Wednesday December 22 between 6pm – 10pm…stop by our annual Christmas Open House…we would love to see you and give you each a warm heartfelft holiday hug! 

Blessings,

Beth…for all the Lambdin clan

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Filed under Christmas Season, Life at the Lambdins