An "Abner" Christmas!

This year's Smucker Christmas card photo is...shall we say,unconventional?! (And I didn't actually send this pose to everyone on our Christmas list!) In October, Carl's niece Shar Halvorsen, took some pictures of us to use for our 2010 card. The kids were in rare form that day, and one of them suggested we all do our "Abner" pose. By way of explanation, the Abner pose comes from our childrens' earliest memories of days spent playing in the back yard with our Amish neighbor kids. Everyone had someone close to their age and they had so much creative fun!

Every few years back then, I would gather all the children together,(at highest count there was a total of 11: 4 of ours and 7 of the neighbors!) line them up according to age/size, and TRY to take a picture. With the old 35mm film, I never knew if my efforts would pay off till the pictures came back in the mail.

So, just for fun, we all decided to line up and recreate the old pictures. Above is the picture Shar snapped. And the picture below shows one of the original Abner shots from years ago.



In the midst of whatever is happening in your corner of earth this Christmas: whether all's right in your world, or whether you are struggling through deep pain, may you be able to experience the presence of JESUS. Emmanuel, God with us. He loves you with an everlasting love, and underneath are the everlasting arms.