Merry Christmas Family

Looking forward to being with family for Christmas. We will miss not being with Phil, Eva, Avery, Tim, Cyndi, Abby and Lydia though. Those get togethers will be a little later. Love you all. Mom

I miss all the places and people I love

The song that came to mind when flying back to Jacksonville:

Well, I'd like to visit the moon
On a rocket ship high in the air
Yes, I'd like to visit the moon
But I don't think I'd like to live there
Though I'd like to look down at the earth from above
I would miss all the places and people I love
So although I might like it for one afternoon
I don't want to live on the moon

I'd like to travel under the sea
I could meet all the fish everywhere
Yes, I'd travel under the sea
But I don't think I'd like to live there
I might stay for a day there if I had my wish
But there's not much to do when your friends are all fish
And an oyster and clam aren't real family
So I don't want to live in the sea

I'd like to visit the jungle, hear the lions roar
Go back in time and meet a dinosaur
There's so many strange places I'd like to be
But none of them permanently

So if I should visit the moon
Well, I'll dance on a moonbeam and then
I will make a wish on a star
And I'll wish I was home once again
Though I'd like to look down at the earth from above
I would miss all the places and people I love
So although I may go I'll be coming home soon
'Cause I don't want to live on the moon
No, I don't want to live on the moon

Christmas Eve

In Americana only two days have “eve’s” to them, Christmas and New Years. In general, I would say a holiday is given an “eve” due to its importance. New Year’s out of necessity needs an Eve. You can’t observe the New Year unless you celebrate the day before. And most celebrations occur that day rather than the next. When you consider the holidays in Americana, in this modern America we live in, filled with consumerism and the comforts of home, Christmas is the most important of them all. Of course it needs an “eve.” Santa doesn’t come “the day before Christmas” – he comes on “Christmas Eve!” We don’t snuggle down into our beds for a long winter’s nap on “the day before Christmas.” We do it on “Christmas Eve!” We don’t go out caroling, throw Christmas parties, or stay up late on “the day before Christmas.” We do it all on “Christmas Eve!” Mostly, though, Christmas Eve has taken on its own special meaning. Yes, Santa and parties and caroling may define Christmas Eve, but you don’t need any of those to make the day special. It’s special in and of itself. There is an anticipation on that day. There’s a feeling on Christmas Eve of waiting. Of waiting for the culmination of this season, the most wonderful day of the year. Just one day away. Maybe that’s what the fullness of time feels like. We’ve waited all these weeks for Christmas, and now, it’s the day before. We can’t wait anymore, for tomorrow it’s Christmas!

The Happiest Christmas

Oh the happiest Christmas,
Is a home coming Christmas,
With the snow fluttering down,
Till the world seems new …


Christmas over the past few years has taken on a special meaning for me. When you live hundreds of miles from home, seeing your family becomes very infrequent. Those times when we get to go home are looked forward to for months. That time of year the trip is made, whatever it be, is bound to be highly anticipated and a treasured time of year.

In popular culture, Christmas is a time of family. So what better time to make an annual trip home to be with our family? And since we don’t see family but that time of year, oh what a wonderful time of year it is!

I remember growing up when we would go to the Crone’s and to Grandma’s and Grandpa’s for Christmas Eve and Christmas. I loved getting together to have our Christmas meal and cookies, and to play games and to just be together as a whole family.

Things and traditions have changed a lot over the past many years but the joy I take in being with you all during Christmas is still the same. I am grateful that I have only had to miss one Christmas from you so far. The Lord has blessed us with being able to go home each Christmastime even though we live so far away.

That Christmas that we were not at home, I called home on Christmas Day. I think you were all together at Grandma’s. At one point, when talking to Dad, he held the phone out and had everyone shout, “Merry Christmas, Tim!” I still remember that exactly. Standing outside in the dark evening in a muddy driveway in a small town in the mountains of North Carolina. I was so far from home, yet hearing everyone say Merry Christmas, in that brief moment, I was at home with my family.

That’s the happiest Christmas for me: being home. Christmas has become so much grander and celebrated for me because, after being away for so long, it’s the time I get to see everyone and be with them once again.


… And the happiest wishes,
Are just old fashioned wishes.
May your days be merry and your sorrows be small.
May the ones you love be near you,
That’s the happiest Christmas of all!

Happy Thanksgiving

I wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. It's a few days late but the longer I wait to say so the less it will be Thanksgiving. I would guess that Thanksgiving lasts for these four days between Thursday and Sunday. Especially if you don't work on Friday and are around relatives for most of these days.

We went to Joy and Duane's house for Thanksgiving this year. [Reference my blog for some specifics.] Cyndi's parents came up for the holiday too. They came straight there from Melbourne. They stayed until Saturday. On Friday evening, Grandmother and Granddad came over to our house to have Thanksgiving leftovers. So there was another family gathering the following day. That day, we also put up some outside Christmas lights. There's also a photo of such on my blog. Ron was over most of the day that day and helped with the lights.

So for the past few days the routine has been out of the ordinary. And when you have the focal point of family and a holiday, that just makes the holiday seem more extended.

I heard that a lot of us were elsewhere for Thanksgiving. I hope you all had an enjoyable time with your respective family and friends. I have not had a Thanksgiving at home for many years now. It is getting familiar down here. The strange foods are not so strange anymore (though still not one's I would eat)! The people are whom I'm coming to expect and looking forward to see.

Happy Thanksgivng.

Love, Tim

happy to be a blogger

I'm not really that happy about being a blogger, but that i finally got accepted into the account. Dad and I have played our first Christmas music today. That was a very good blog you wrote Tim, about singing songs to Abby. I liked that. I'm looking forward to Christmas and the other holidays and having the whole family together. Those times are always the best for me.
Well, I'm going to sign off, but I hope there will be some other good things to read on the Barden Holiday Blog. Love you all! Mom

Christmas Hymns

I’ve meant to blog more on here than I have so far this season. Though I have thought about our blog now and then over the past couple weeks, I keep busy and don’t have a lot of time to sit down and actually write something.

Considering the Christmas season has actually begun now, at least by my estimation, I thought I should make some time to write.

I decided some years ago to observe Christmas from the day following All Saints Day to New Years Day. There’s something that really makes me happy thinking about Christmas and listening to Christmas music. So, I thought, if I extend the season, I get to enjoy it longer. I think I came up with this idea not too long after I learned about All Saints Day. I really took to the idea of an alternative to Halloween. As the holiday brings in the month of November, it and Christmas are like the bookends to the last two months of the year. We can begin this time of year in hallowed thought and close it out with the same.

All Saints Day is more antiquely known as All Hallows Day. I am not exactly sure what the Catholic church had in mind when the name was established, (of course the holiday is a rebuttal to the day preceding, All Hallow’s Eve … Halloween … just for explanation), but in considering the use of the word hallow – “to make holy, to keep as sacred” that is an excellent way to usher in the Christmas season as we celebrate the incarnation of our Savior.

Each evening when I rock Abby to sleep for the night, I usually sing her a few hymns. Some weeks before this start of the hallowed season, I started mixing in some Christmas carols for variation. Now that’s all I’m using. I think about the words to those seasonal hymns sometimes as I sing them. There really is a wonderful meaning in some of them. That’s part of what gives me that joyous feeling this time of year, listening to those songs. I recently purchased some carols from Fernando Ortega’s new Christmas CD. I added them to my Christmas Music playlist in my iPod. It’s up to 23 songs now, most of them carols. There is a place for the lighthearted music of the season, but there is so much more meaning in the Christmas hymns. I wonder if some people, never exposed to the Christian Faith, can really enjoy Christmas carols, or maybe have never even heard some of them. It’s so wonderful not only to enjoy the majesty and beauty of the melodies of the carols but also to sing them as praise for the message they bring.