The past ten days have been a whirlwind! The Christmas holidays were a wonderful time of celebrating Jesus, His birth, and the awesome family He’s blessed me with. I hope you had a wonderful holiday season as well, but just between us, is there a small part of you that’s ready to get back to your normal routine?

This season was unusually hectic for us because we had a lot of events in addition to Christmas that required, well, more hoopla than normal! Here’s a recap of the Ryan family hoopla over the past week and a half or so:

Dec. 24 – Christmas Eve:

In addition to an amazing production that Laurie’s husband, Bill, and my husband, Jason spearheaded to celebrate our last Christmas Eve before our church moves into a brand new building, this was also my first experience as a “stage mom!” My son, Gideon, was a wiseman in one of the services and three of my nieces were angels. Does hoopla accompany the backstage antics of managing 15 four-and five-year-olds? Why yes it does!

Dec. 25 – Christmas Day:

Our first Christmas with three kiddos instead of two. There’s a synergy to adding a new child to the mix of Christmas. We all tried to scale back on the gifts and hoopla this year, but by the time we came home, it still looked like a bomb had gone off in our living room. I don’t have the courage to post that picture, so I’ll just post this one and  you can pretend with me that it was always this picture-perfect!

Dec. 27 – Anniversary:

My husband and I celebrated our 8th anniversary with a wonderful dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. I even wore heels! 🙂

Dec. 28 – Mom Day:

This day marked the 25th anniversary of my mother’s death. My brother, sister, and I have never really done anything together to remember her, so this year we planned a special “Mom Day” together. We fixed one of her favorite recipes for lunch, watched old home movies, looked through pictures and visited the cemetary. It was a fun and special day, and I am so glad we did it!

Dec. 29 – Tonsillectomy:

The holidays wouldn’t be complete without a little medical hoopla, right? We rounded out the vacation with a hospital stay for Gideon so he could have his tonsils removed. The surgery went well, and he is still recovering at home. Lots of ice cream and popsicles!

So, you can probably see why I’m on hoopla overload and am ready to get back to some kind of routine again.

But one of the things I’ve been looking forward to the most is our online study that is starting in just TWO WEEKS!! If today is your first day back at work (or your husband’s first day back, so you’ve finally got the house to yourself again!), it’s time to get back into the swing of things and jumpstart your routines. Since I’m sure that Bible study is part of your routine, go ahead and order your Beauty by the Book workbook right now so you’ll have it in time for the start of our online study on Jan. 17. I’ll post a full schedule and details on Thursday so you can see how the study will pan out.

Q: How was your Christmas break? We’d love to hear all about it!