Enjoy this 10-Step Instructional Guide to Messing Up St. Patrick’s Day for Your Kids: 1. Don’t plan anything the night before. In fact, better-yet, forget about the holiday completely until the morning-of. 2. Announce enthusiastically that the family will have something green for breakfast. 3. Be too lazy to make pancakes. Opt for toast and [...]
{ 12 comments }
“From an Asian land of coconut trees and elephants, let me say Merry Christmas. Whether you celebrate today in your home with family or at the table of friends, Merry Christmas. And, this holiday, if you celebrate with gifts or service, prayers or feasts, I hope your day is saturated with the Merry of Christmas, because [...]
{ 1 comment }
“When there aren’t enough presents under the tree, or When there are way too many. When I can’t celebrate on the same continent as my family, or When I entertain only because I should. When I eat too much, or don’t decorate enough, or when I forget the devotionals, 4 out of 5 nights-in-a-row. Guilt Descends. . . “ Read [...]
{ 3 comments }
I’m used to Eggnog Lattes and crackling fires and Colorado-chill, but this year, I have instant coffee over ice and flip-flops and hot-enough-to-swim weather. I’m used to driving the neighborhoods to look at lights on houses with pajama-clad kids in the backseat, but tonight I sat in a 15-passenger van beside my son in his [...]
{ 21 comments }
I’m not afraid to say that we’re having a tacky Christmas this year– tackier than I experienced while growing up in the deep South, and tackier than when we were married-young and living-in-government-housing college students. I’m finding that celebrating a Christian holiday in a country that’s 96% Buddhist limits your decorating options, and so, we’ve [...]
{ 24 comments }
We always give Jesus a Birthday Present at Christmas. The kids can understand that terminology, and frankly, so can we. But, if you’re like me, you start the season with high hopes of Advent devotionals and intentional giving, but you end up 10 days before D-Day, and you’ve nearly-forgotten about the Most Important Gift, after [...]
{ 10 comments }
Living in a Buddhist country, I am surrounded by offerings . . . And I am wondering this Christmas, what their worship should be teaching me about mine. Because perhaps this season we find ourselves in– post-Thanksgiving and pre-New-Year– is mostly about that which is laid on the altar. Head on over to Christmas Change [...]
{ 1 comment }
Every year, Thailand celebrates the New Year with a giant, three-day, city-wide, all-inclusive, all-out WATER FIGHT. It is seriously the most fun I have ever seen an entire group of people enjoying at any one time. Groups of friends and families pile into the back of trucks with huge trash cans of water, [...]
{ 10 comments }
In honor of Valentine’s Day, I am reposting this lesson learned in February last year. Here’s to hoping I am learning to love a little better now than I was then . . . The Lesson for My Kids. As often happens in “teaching” my kids, I seem to learn more than I impart. This week [...]
{ 2 comments }
Remember our Tree of Thanks? Over the past few weeks, it has gotten full of leaves, each declaring a gratitude. Things like: opportunities to be humbled crackers family my Wednesday lunch friends paper towels date nights Jesus a warm house, though it’s snowy outside God’s word grace to make it to naptimes Gratitude is a [...]
{ 1 comment }
A Lesson for Me. I am finding personally that there is nothing that will pull me out of a self-pitying mood more than remembering, writing, speaking, claiming, and praying the multitude of things I have to be thankful for. When I can see that the list of blessings is far longer than the list of desires, [...]
{ 2 comments }
ALifeOverseas.com / LauraParkerBlog.com.
My family is living overseas in Thailand, where my husband is directing a Christian Humanitarian Foundation. This blog is the honest recording of our journey– squatty potties and all. 
 |
 |
 |
|
