Christmas tidings to all

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. :) Mine was lovely, went to my mommy's house and we had a mellow time watching movies with the fam minus the two middle siblings. My mom had rented 7 movies since she just had shoulder & wrist surgery and needed some entertainment, plus everyone got a movie or two for Christmas -- we were swimming in them! I had to continually shoo me poor mum out of the kitchen, she doesn't take the doctor's orders to "rest" very well! Her surgery was all on her right side and she is right-handed, so a lot of things have been a challenge.
I've been feeling very inspired since I got some childhood favorite movies and some new imaginative favorites for Christmas -- Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, Prince Caspian, Stardust, Tin Man, and MirrorMask! :) Note the continual theme running through all -- a person(s) from our ordinary world ends up in a totally strange and fantastical world. Granted, in MirrorMask the heroine is from a strange circus family in our world -- but the new world she ends up in is the most fantastical and strange of any movie I've seen! They are all transformed by these adventures and they are never the same again. It's my favorite theme of books, movies, and well... life in general. That truly is at the heart of my own life, not only as an artist who paints imaginary things, but also spiritually as a Christian. Which brings me to the best Christmas gift of all... Emmanuel, God With Us. I have really looked at this season with a lot of thankfulness, knowing what God has done by coming here clothed as humanity -- and knowing exactly what it is to be us. Even better, that He continually calls me with a magical strangeness and longing that I feel in the adventures of my favorite movies and books like the ones listed above. One day I'll be crossing into an extraordinary world as well. :)