Book and Movie Reviews

I have been reading and my family has been watching movies. So I thought today would be a good time to talk about them.

I recently read Forever Odd and Brother Odd by Dean Koontz. Dean Koontz created the character, Odd Thomas and has written four books starring this character. Odd Thomas has an unusual gift in that he can see dead people but they cannot speak to him. I read Odd Thomas the first book in the series of Odd Thomas books last year and did not like the ending. Therefore, I didn't think that I wanted to read the other books in the series, but decided to try again a couple of months ago. The character Odd Thomas is charming, interesting and likeable. I enjoyed Forever Odd and Brother Odd considerably more than Odd Thomas, but it is necessary to read Odd Thomas to fully understand the other books. Odd is always caught up in solving some sort of mystery or saving lives. The books are suspenseful and fast-paced. However, I will caution that there is inappropriate language sprinkled throughout these books. I will also caution that there is a new age type of thinking in the books as far as what happens to the souls of dead people. I enjoyed the books for the mystery and suspense and for the character of Odd Thomas and the fact that one of the dead people he sees frequently is Elvis, and it is quite clear that Mr. Koontz knows his Elvis facts whether because he's a fan or because he researched it.

The most recent book I finished reading was The Truth Seeker by Dee Henderson. This is the third book in Ms. Henderson's O'Malley series. I loved this book. This entire series is very good. There is mystery, suspense, romance and faith in every book. No inappropriate language here. The characters will win your heart. I have fallen in love with the O'Malley family and the prominent people in their lives and I route for their happiness. The characters are so realistic and easy to identify with. I highly recommend this series. I have begun the fourth book in the series, The Protector. Every one of these is hard to put down.

We have recently seen the movies: 10,000 B.C., Up, and The Christmas Box. I will tell you that I thought 10,000 B.C. was much better than I thought it was. I really don't know why it was called "10,000 B.C.". Parts of it reminded me of the story of Queen Esther in the Bible. I really liked the main characters. I wouldn't say that the "spiritual" aspect was in agreement with my spiritual beliefs, but I did like the story.

I was disappointed with Up. So many of my friends, and my two sons, who had seen it before me, told me it was really good. Well, I found it to be very melancholy and slightly depressing. There didn't seem to be much happiness in the film, even in the ending. Nothing seemed to turn out right for the characters. I know that in life things don't always seem to turn out right but I don't see that everything seems to go wrong in life either. There are good times and bad in life and this movie just didn't depict the good times too well. I really don't think that I would want to watch it again, although both of my boys, who have now seen it twice, would watch it again.

Now that Christmas is drawing near, we like to watch Christmas movies. So, last night we watched one that my mother had taped off of television for me several years ago, but I had never watched it until last night. It starred Maureen O'Hara, Richard Thomas and Annette O'Toole. It was a very touching Christmas movie. It was wonderful how Richard (played by Richard Thomas) learned what the first gift of Christmas was and how it affected his attitude toward Mary (Maureen O'Hara) and his family. It is definitely one we'll watch again.

Finally, we watched only about half of a movie earlier this week. Again, it was one that many of my friends had told me was a great and funny Christmas movie. It's called A Christmas Story. Well, we found this movie very offensive. It was filled with lots of inappropriate language. I was very surprised about the offensiveness of it because it was made quite a few years ago, and appeared to take place in about the '50's time frame. I would not recommend this movie to anyone. We ended up turning it off halfway through when they began talking about the "f" word and we had not seen anything humorous about the film up until that point either.

So, for what it's worth, these are my opinions on the most recent books I have read and movies we have seen. If you've read any of these books or seen any of these movies, please let me know your thoughts by posting a comment.

Who's Really Intolerant?

I had a very interesting conversation with some Christian friends on Saturday morning, which has prompted me to do this post. Christians are constantly being labeled, in the media, as intolerant.

In our Saturday morning conversation the whole "We should not say 'Merry Christmas' because it leaves other religions out or offends others" discussion came up. What we found was that it is not Christians at all who are intolerant, but all of those who keep trying to silence and lay blame upon Christians.

We all agreed that we should, indeed, say "Merry Christmas" for that is the holiday that we are celebrating. Yes, we are well aware that there are other celebrations out there, but they do not take place at the exact same time as Christmas, with the exception of Hanukkah. We also agreed that we would more than willingly and happily wish Jewish people "Happy Hanukkah" and feel no offense in doing so. We would also be willing to wish Muslim believers "Happy Ramadan" during their Ramadan celebration time and to wish African-Americans "Happy Kwanzaa" during the Kwanzaa celebration time and not be offended to do so, even though they are not things we celebrate or believe in.

So, who are the real intolerants?

Christians love all people. We would be more than ecstatic if all people would seek Christ and become Christians for we know that our Bible is true and that God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow -- He does not change. There is archaeological and historical proof that the Bible is true. So, of course, we think it would be wonderful if all people would be Christian, but we also know that this will never happen because the Bible also tells us that.

Therefore, as a Christian, I love all people and would love to share my faith with anyone who wants to learn about it. I do not condemn any people. It is not my job to judge and condemn, for this will be done by our Father in Heaven.

Yes, there are lifestyles that true Christians do not accept because they are sinful. I strongly believe in this: "Love the sinner, not the sin." I simply pray for those who are lost in their sin and do my best to be a witness and example to them.

Christmas, however, is a Christian holiday. It is a time for us to reflect upon the past year and look to the hope of the coming year and the wonderful hope that God has given to every man who will accept it, the Christ child, who came to live on earth for a time and then to sacrifice himself to save us from our sin. Does this mean we are sinless? No. We are all born with a sin nature because of the fall of man (the story of Adam and Eve) in the book of Genesis in the Bible. However, we can repent of our sins and seek Christ's forgiveness and accept Christ as our risen Lord and Saviour. Then, we need to spend time reading and studying our Bibles and praying. Prayer is our way of communicating with God, and it is not just a time for us to give Him a long list of things we want and wait for Him to give them to us. That is not what God is all about. Prayer is a time for us to speak to God about our needs and the needs of others; to praise Him for the blessings He gives us and to be quiet and listen and wait for Him to speak to us. As we do these things and attend church services, where we can fellowship with other believers, we will want to live our lives in a way that is pleasing to God, and we will not want to sin anymore. We are not perfect, and cannot be perfect while on this earth, but we can always seek God's forgiveness when we stumble and then we must do our best not to make those mistakes again.

I pray that you find your hope in Christ this Christmas season. With Christ, though we have burdens, they are not heavy as we lay them at His feet.

Santa and Jesus

Merry Christmas!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Wonderful Winter Weekend

We had a wonderful Christmasy weekend. Friday night was a crisp, clear, chilly night, and we had planned to go see the Christmas lights at the Herr's Snack Factory with friends. My hubby suggested we take hot chocolate, which I made and put in our thermal mugs, and he grabbed the boom box and Christmas CD's. Then we loaded the five of us and two of our friends into the van and headed off for the long drive. During the drive, we had good conversation, good Christmas music and hot chocolate.

The lights were worth the drive. We parked the van and got out to walk around to fully enjoy the displays, and, of course, so I could take some pictures.

This reminded my friend and I of a Candy Cane forest.

We thought these cute potato-head type decorations were adorable.

I thought it was clever how this tree decorated in red also had white lights looking like Christmas balls hanging on it.

Purple is my favorite color, but I've never really thought of it as a Christmas color, but I really liked this tree!

Here is Rudolph and a couple of other reindeer and Santa's sleigh.

If we hadn't gotten out of the van to take a closer look around, we would've missed a couple of things like this beautiful tree that was inside an entranceway to one of the buildings.

I saw this lovely angel tree just inside the building, past the entranceway of the same building.

Here are some more of Santa's reindeer just leisurely grazing.

I thought this Christmas Palm was a cute idea (like Christmas in Hawaii or California).

Here are some overhanging lights that the cars drove under to drive through and see the light display.

I loved the silver and gold of this display.

This was on top of the Herr Snack Factory building.


Then, on Saturday, we received our first snowfall of the season.

I took this picture in our neighborhood while the snow was still falling.



On Sunday morning, the drive to church was breathtakingly beautiful with the fresh snow and ice making everything look fresh, pure and new. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to stop and take pictures of all of the lovely sights along the way, but when we arrived at church, I had time to take some photos of things I could see around the church, while I stood in the parking lot.

I love this shot. The sun was just at the right spot for this snow-covered pine trees to cast shadows.

Then, my heart was blessed when, following our fellowship meal, my husband came to tell me there was something going on in the sanctuary that I wouldn't want to miss. So, I joined him to find our two boys, along with several other teens and young adults from our church family, practicing "Oh Holy Night". One young man was playing the piano, two young ladies were playing recorders and there were five (four young men and two young ladies) singing, and it was beautiful. They will be performing this for our Christmas Eve service. It is such a blessing for us to be attending a church where our children feel so comfortable and so a part of the church that they come up with ideas of musical pieces they would like to perform either instrumentally or vocally, either individually or as a group, and know that they will be welcome to do so.

I hope your weekend was as good as mine. :)

Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) Part 4

Continuing right where I left off last time, from the book Handbook of Attachment Interventions, Step 4 is to reestablish authority in the home, especially with the kitchen, the car, and the cash. A child who is "out of control" needs someone to control them until they can build self-control.



Step 5 is that adults involved with a RAD child must have their eyes open. It is highly likely that the child will attempt to manipulate because they do not trust that others have their best interest in mind. The child believes if he/she can outsmart and manipulate the adult no one is strong enough to protect them. The banners of beligerence that these children carry of lying, stealing, breaking things, fit-throwing, sexually acting-out, hurting animals, and oppositional defiant behavior are thundering cries for help. Children will fail then parents turn a deaf ear or warn, lecture, or explain rather than have the child face the consequences and make restitution. These children do not learn from words; they learn from action. To recover from the problems of stealing they must make restitution for every stolen item and every suspected stolen item. They need to make restitution for injuries inflicted. They earn the money and pay it back or they give of their time to lift the load of the one they insulted or hurt. One option for restitution is to do chores (e.g., vacuum the bedroom, fold the laundry for siblings). They can rub lotion on the feet of the tired Mom they have hassled.

Holiday Weekend

It's hard to believe that we just had Thanksgiving and Christmas is just around the corner. I find it quite sad that Thanksgiving is so easily overlooked or just looked forward to as a time to overeat. The stores in our area had Christmas and Halloween stuff on the shelves at the same time in October, but we were hard-pressed to find anything related to Thanksgiving.

One Saturday morning, before Thanksgiving, I went to a rubber stamping activity and the ladies asked the demonstrator to put some Christmas music on! Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE Christmas music. However, I also happen to think that Thanksgiving is important, so I said, "It's not even Thanksgiving yet. We need Thanksgiving music." And I began to sing "We Gather Together" and one lady said, "That's my favorite song." I simply said that I hope that if we are so easily overlooking being Thankful for the annual Thanksgiving holiday, that we are thankful everyday as we should be.

Oh, sure, the food is extra special for Thanksgiving and I enjoy that too, but the real meaning of Thanksgiving is to BE THANKFUL! The very first Thanksgiving was celebrated because the pilgrims were thankful to God for their lives, health and the food, and they were thankful to Squanto, the Indian, for teaching them about growing corn and for the friendship they had with the Indians. After all, their first winter in this country was very hard and many died, so they had great reason to be thankful. I'm sure, if we all take time to think about it, we all have great reason to be Thankful as well, especially those of us who are Christian, for we should be thankful for Christ's sacrifice for us, and we should be careful to remember that the precious Christ child is the true reason for the upcoming Christmas holiday. Don't get so caught up in the hustle and bustle and commercialism and the stores who insist upon saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" that you forget the true meaning and joy of this season. It has always been important and always will be, and may even be more important this year. Don't let what is happening in this country cause you to fear or feel defeated. Continue to keep your eyes on the one who was born a little over 2000 years ago, who sacrificed himself for me and for you and no matter what happens in this country, know that Christ is our Savior and God Is In Control.