Bring Your Torches

A Favorite Carol for your Christmas Sunday:

Jeanette, Isabella

The painter Georges de La Tour painted this nativity scene based on the carol.

"Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella" is a Christmas carol which originated from the Provence region of France in the 16th century. The song is unique among Christmas carols in that it is in 3/8 time.

The carol tells the story of two milkmaids, Jeanette and Isabella, who go to milk their cows in a stable in Bethlehem, only to find the baby Jesus sleeping in the manger. The two girls run to town to tell the village of the coming of Christ, and the townspeople come with their own torches to view the sight for themselves. However, they have to keep their voices down so little Jesus can enjoy his dreams. To this day in the Provence region, children dress up as shepherds and milkmaids, carrying torches and candles to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, while singing the carol.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lyrics for the traditional version:

Listen to Tori sing, it in case you missed it above.

Bring a torch, Jeanette, Isabella!

Bring a torch, come swiftly and run!

Christ is born. Tell the folk of the village

Jesus is born and Mary's calling.

Ah!* Ah! beautiful is the Mother!

Ah! Ah! beautiful is her son!

It is wrong when the Baby is sleeping,

It is wrong to speak so loud.

Silence, now as you gather around,

Lest your noise should waken Jesus.

Hush! Hush! see how the Baby slumbers;

Hush! Hush! see how the Baby sleeps!

Softly now unto the stable,

Softly for a moment come!

Look and see how charming is Jesus,

Look at him there, His cheeks are rosy!

Hush! Hush! see how the Child is sleeping;

Hush! Hush! see how he smiles in dreams!

Hazel's not a Vegan

This is Hazel at our Christmas Eve dinner and yes, that's a steak she's eating. She just picked it up off of my plate. This girl knows the good stuff when she sees it.

Guess Who We Ran into at WalMart??

He was just catching up on a few last minute items for the Elves and Mrs. Claus...that was his story at least! (wink!)  Chloe was pretty enamored to say the least.  

Christmas Home Tour: Miss Jen's House

Here are a few tidbits from my Christmas decore.  I swear--when I put my decorations 

away in January they spend the whole year multiplying.  This year my husband 

was giving me the big stink-eye as he unloaded 25 boxes-big, giant rubbermade 

ones- from our crawl space.

I really love this nativity set. I know everyone in Utah Valley has the exact same 

one and it doesn't even look that great in this picture but it's just so simple 

and it looks great at night with the lights.

These polar bears are my all time favorite.  I love that they can stay up longer than the regular Christmas stuff too.  I love them with the red wall (another thing everyone in Utah Valley has) and they look fab with the primitive stockings.

This is my biggest tree, um...I like a lot of stuff on my trees, can you tell???  And let's 

not discuss the pile of packages that reaches half way up the tree.  Just for the record 

90% of that stuff is for the kids and none it is from me and Lowell...yikes.

This one below is a new 'snow' tree that I did for the first time this year. 

Do you like the long, tall Santa??  It's Lowell!  

Thanks for stopping by! Merry Christmas.

The Best Letter to Santa EVER!

Hey Santa- Just go "ditto" for me on this letter kay???--Miss Jen

Christmas on Mars

*I'm not sure where this is from or who drew it. If you know please contact me so I can credit it here. ANYway, this totally cracked me up!

Tacky Christmas Yards

I have to admit that I have sort of a secret-kitschy-love-affair with tacky stuff.  I can't help it. Anyway....another favorite blog of mine is Tacky Christmas Yards.  It's funny and the blog owner is a crack up with the comments and 'violations' that she hands out. Again-check it out for some goooood holiday fun.

The photo above is one tacky item that I saw here in Utah this year.  It's an 8 foot tall inflatable deer hunter snowman.  Complete with orange hat, cami vest and rifle. Let's look closely and note that these are not props--they're inflatable too, as in the snowman came from the manufacturer dressed as a hunter.  Hmmmm...watch out Rudolph.

The Girls and Their Favorite: Paul

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Guess What???

It's catalog season...it's the most wonderful time of the year!!

Tacky Christmas Yards....

This is a very funny website about tacky Christmas yards.   I must say WTH?!? to the people that do these yards?  Don't they have anything else to spend their money on in December of all months?  Donate to charity for pete sake!  Anyway-check it out, the comments are funnier than the pictures.

Link:   Tacky Christmas Yards

GeoCaching on New Years Day

The guys took the kids out on a 'geocaching' excursion!  It's where you use a GPS to locate a prexisting 'cache'.  Lowell set up a special beginner course just for our kids but I guess this is an orienteering game you can participate in all over the world with courses and cashes set up by others that you can then search and find .  The kids loved it and I suspect they may be doing more of this with their dear old dad.  Read more about it here.

They had a blast playing in the snow and treasure hunting and learning how to use the GPS-the kids and the dads too!

They did a little sledding on the tiny bit of snow that we have in the valley at the moment.  I guess there were few crashes as Chloe came home with a bit of a gash on her forehead-no serious injuries though-thank heaven-we are really hoping for 2008 to be the year we take less trips to the ER.

Here is the group:  Lowell and our kids and my brother Chris and his crew.  Grampa Jim is taking the picture.

Happy New Year 2008!

Our New year started with a visit from my parents and this is the first time my dad got to hold Hazel!  We have had kind of a crap time since my parents got here, just in that we have all had the flu, we've had 2 trips to the ER (first:  my dad-thought it was a heart problem-turned out to be acid reflux and second: me with kidney stones.  PAIN!).  Then our heater died on the weekend to the tune of...well--I'll spare you the gory details but it wasn't cheap!   This was all happened over about 4 days. Are we having fun yet???  Sheeeeesh!

Anyway-the highlight of the week was the Hartman's baby blessing, it was so cool and Andy was so cute and sweet.  Then ranking right up there with that was the after Christmas shopping!  It gives me such joy!  Got some awesome stuff and great deals!

 

In other Stewart news...Chloe managed to find this little outfit all on her own and I am scared! Julia looked at her and asked why she was dressed "like a dude".  Guys,  I am terrified of the rest of my life!

Anyway-I'm back for the time being!  Love seeing all your blogs, keep 'em going!