Kari's Twelve Days of Christmas Parody

So one of my friends posted this picture on Facebook.

Yeah.  Anybody else in that boat, you're feelin me, right?  So I thought....hey, what this gives me is an excuse for all the presents I buy myself anyway!  If we're honest, I buy myself presents all year long, but since it's Christmas, and since I am quite unattached....

I've decided this calls for a parody....so I'm rewriting The Twelve Days of Christmas.  These may or may not be actual items I have bought for myself recently....but it's a great little representation of the things that trip my trigger.  So here you go.  But you have to sing it.  :)

Kari's Twelve Days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas I bought myself a gift....a hat with a panda bear face.

On the second day of Christmas I bought myself a gift....

How To Train Your Dragon, and a hat with a panda bear face.

On the third day of Christmas I bought myself a gift....

pumpkin spice latte, How To Train Your Dragon, and a hat with a panda bear face.

On the fourth day of Christmas I bought myself a gift....

jeans that fit just right, pumpkin spice latte, How To Train Your Dragon...

and a hat with a panda bear face.

On the fifth day of Christmas I bought myself a gift...

five pounds of chocolate....

jeans that fit just right

pumpkin spice latte

How To Train Your Dragon

and a hat with a panda bear face.

....aaand skipping on to the last verse....

On the twelfth day of Christmas I bought myself a gift...
pumpkin scented candle
purple glittered nail bling
new Aero hoodie
tickets to The Hobbit
coconutty lotion
seven purple gel pens....
New songs on Itunes
Five pounds of chocolate......!
jeans that fit just right
pumpkin spice latte
How To Train Your dragon....
AAAAND A HAT WITH A PANDA BEAR FACE!!!!


Now the moral of this silly song is that I obviously like to spoil myself  a bit much....and although the way to my heart may be complicated, it most certainly involves chocolate and pumpkin.  :D

HAPPY FIFTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!

Ragged People

Several years ago, I visited Rwanda.  That trip was the birth of this blog!  One of the things I brought back as a remembrance of my time there was a small nativity scene made of African banana leaves. The leaves are skillfully twisted and wrapped to form a hut and the characters of witnesses to the birth of God.

Each year at Christmastime, I have set my African nativity out on the bookshelf in the livingroom. Over time and the antics of a curious little brother who can never leave things alone, the characters have become a bit, well, worn.  

Let's face it, they've been through some trials.  They've been lost behind the bookshelf countless times.  Played with, pulled on, no doubt tossed against some walls now and then.  One is missing an arm.  Parts of the banana leaf robes are torn away.  Joseph can't stand up straight; he has to lean on the edge of the hut.  These are ragged people.  So were the people who came to Jesus.  Shepherds. Fishermen.  Beggars.  Cripples.  The outcasts and refuse of society.  Common laborers.  Uneducated. Tax Collecters.  Shunned.  Lepers.  The dying and the dead.  People barely hanging on to the last shreds of hope.  Adulterers.  Children.  Unwanted.  Unimportant.  Hoards of people with ragged bodies....even more with ragged lives and ragged hearts.  Holding on to the tattered shreds of the life they once dreamed could be theirs.  These are the ones who came to Jesus.  And He came to them. Wrapped Himself in their skin.  In their tattered rags.  In their obscure lives.  Because He wanted to make them whole.  

Today we can feel a bit ragged, worn almost clear through.  And Jesus is speaking to our hearts something like this...."I came for you.  I have always been coming for you.  My wounds make you well.  My brokenness makes you whole.  My death makes you alive.  My surrender makes you free. Come to Me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens...they aren't yours to carry.  I will give you rest.  I will be your rest."

So come, all you ragged people.  Because in Jesus, in our Immanuel?  You are whole.