Luke 2 King James Version (KJV)
And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.
(And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)
To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.
And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.
And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.
And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.
And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.
But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.
And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.
Christmas Carols played on Harp
Have a blessed Christmas, Stellars!
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Merry Christmas and good morning, Luce!
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“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” – Luka Šulić
Filmed in Piazza Unità – Trieste – Italy
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Merry Christmas everyone. My your day be filled with joy, the joy of the Incarnation. Christ the Savior is born.
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Merry Christmas Menagerie!
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Merry Christmas and good morning, Menage!
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Good morning and Merry Christmas everyone!
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That should have had a warning label on it. Coffee came out of my nose! Merry Christmas, and good mornin’ from Rancho el Gordito, where it was a brisk 33* F at 7:30 this a.m. Feels like Christmas to me!
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Mornin’ there, T and Merry Christmas! That one struck me particularly because my Dad’s birthday is tomorrow and my Grandma’s was yesterday – and the birthday/Christmas thang was something I heard every year when I was a youngun!
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Think I’ll use that on Mrs. T for the anniversary, which is Sunday! Thanks for the relationship tip! 😉
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21 here T, but I think we dodged a bullet. They said yesterday that it was going to get down to 14 tonight but today revised that to 25. Either way it is going to be cold tomorrow morning when my husband goes deer hunting.
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I’m not much of a hunter in my old age. People have asked me why. I guess some tree-huggers think some kid from the country, and who has lived in Texas most of my life, might be a PETA fan or something. That has nothing to do with it. I don’t like to get up early, or sit out in the cold! But I’m all for People Eating Tasty Animals, though! 😀 😀 😀
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I prefer venison to beef any day!
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Merry Christmas, WeeWeed!
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Merry Christmas and good morning, Stella! Do you start your rib roasts cold or at room-ish temperature?
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I have never cooked one. I am intimidated.
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IKR??? We may have screwed up $30.00 worth of meat…..
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Guess what! I got a 6# roast for $17.99. I think that Instacart screwed up their on-line price list. The same roast at Costco is $70 or $80.
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This one was on sale, too, thank God! 6 lbs.
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It’s easy, fast and delicious. Just need a good thermometer.
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I just talked with my daughter. My SIL is making beef wellington AND mushroom wellington (for the vegetarian.)
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Cold. I recently read that you would have to leave the roast out at room temp for hours in order to get it warm enough to make a difference. I DO rest it after roasting, though!
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Alton Brown’s rib roast:
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My mother said the same thing. Finally, my father got smart and started getting her a dozen red roses every year “for your birthday”!
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Merry Christmas and good morning, Z’s!
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And the same to you and yours!
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Merry Christmas everyone. Hope you all have a really nice day.
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Merry Christmas, mom, and the same to you!
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Merry Christmas and good morning Mom!
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Merry, Happy, Blessed Christmas to all Stellars! From the Z’s. Here is our tree. Note the ornaments on the floor: the three year old has been carefully removing all he can reach (plastic of course) and carrying them off to roll around.
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Merry Christmas, beautiful tree. Do you use imgur to post your pictures? I need a tutorial from you or Lucille. I’ve played around again this morning trying every single code on imgur and all I get are text strings.
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I’ll try, but it sometimes takes me a few tries to get it. Remember, I have an iPad.
Go to imgur and touch the profile icon on the bottom of the page. Touch the plus sign in the upper right hand corner. Touch the picture from your collection. Wait for it to load into imgur. Afte it uploads, touch the picture you want and touch the half box with the up arrow above it. Sometimes I get the word “copy” sometimes share. If I get a box with “copy link” I touch that icon. Then I go back to Stella’s page and open a new post, type a comment, hit two returns, touch the box to paste (next to the forward and back arrows above the w key) and hit two more returns. Before I post, I write down the address because I can check next time I post so I don’t repost the last one in error. Sometimes the picture does not come up but the string of letters & numbers does; I have no idea why. I think that’s everything.
Now, can I see your your tree?
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Oops! Forgot. After touching the picture: Touch “next”, “public” or “hidden”, then upload. The colors cycle along the bottom then it lets you know it was successful. Then you can follow my instructions to get it to Stella’s.
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Trying with a favorite picture.
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Yay!, thanks czarina.
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Oks, let’s try the tree.
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I went to post my pics for today, and imgur is coming up with an error message. Once i can post, I’ll copy what I do and leave directions here. I have a windows based laptop – do you have windows or apple?
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Hi Menagerie!
imgur is back up now.
This is how I do imgur. I have a windows operating system laptop. I don’t know what you have.
I make sure the picture is less than 650 pixels in each direction, & use a file that ends in png or jpg.
I put the pic on my desktop
go to imgur & click on new post in little green box
drag the pic to where it says to drop images here
then an ad plays
when it’s over it says image uploaded
then I right click to copy image location
then come to Stella’s comment box & leave 2 empty lines above,
then paste the location, then 2 empty lines below.
Hope this helps you or anyone else having problems.:-)
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When I was growing up, all our ornaments were plastic.
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We have newer plastic ones I bought at the after sales at Walmart, some glass ones I accrued oveer the years at various places including grocey stores and quick stop gas stations, and two boxes of very old, Polish, hand blown glass ornaments. This year I’m having to do what we do when there is a new kitten or puppy: unbreakable. Left my mother’s ceramic Christmas tree up in the attic. Did get out the stuffed grandmother mouse.
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A lot of my ornaments are not breakable – wood, metal, plastic etc. I keep those towards the bottom of the tree. I don’t have little kids, but I do have a toddler dog and a cat.
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So cute. 🙂
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As we have posted before, New Orleans has many localized Christmas songs. Here is a new one, an ad from Rouses’ Market.
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Wishing you a very Blessed Christmas Stella. Thank you for your wondrous site….
Merry Christmas Stellars…..
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Merry Christmas!
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Can’t post pics cause imgur in error mode 😦
Here is my favorite Christmas song, sung by one of my favorite artists:
[Verse 1]
What child is this who laid to rest
On Mary’s lap is sleeping
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet
While shepherds watch are keeping
This, this is Christ the king
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing
Haste, haste to bring Him laud
The babe, the son of Mary
[Verse 2]
Why lies He in such mean estate
Where ox and ass are feeding
The end of fear for all who hear
The silent Word is speaking
This, this is Christ the king
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing
Haste, haste to bring Him laud
The babe, the son of Mary
[Verse 3]
So bring Him incense, gold and myrrh
Come peasant king to love Him;
The king of kings salvation brings
Let loving hearts enthrone Him
This, this is Christ the king
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing
Haste, haste to bring Him praise
The babe, the son of Mary
Raise, raise the song on high
The virgin sings her lullaby:
Joy, joy for Christ is born
The babe, the son of Mary
I pray everyone is having a Blessed day of joy celebrating the birth of our Lord & Savior. Even if we can’t have what we consider a normal Christmas season, God is always with us.
Merry Christmas to all my Stellar friends! 😉
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Some one may have already put this out in the last few days, and I missed it, but it’s always worth seeing again 😉
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imgur is back up!
Here is some info I found from https://www.thebiblejourney.org/biblejourney1/3-jesuss-childhood-journeys-b/mary-joseph-go-to-bethlehem/
“Lk. 2:1-5 Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem in Judaea, where Joseph’s family live (see 1 on Map 4). The journey takes four or five days as Nazareth is 65 miles / 105 km north of Jerusalem (in a straight line), while Bethlehem is a hilltop town situated on a ridge near the edge of the Judaean desert, 5 miles / 8km south of Jerusalem.”
So Mary was just a teenager taking 4-5 days to go 70 miles by donkey right before giving birth. I looked up the weather there this week, and it was a low of 39 at night and a high of 57 during the day. She must have been beyond exhausted. I found this painting by Margaret Tarrant of the Blessed Virgin Mary fallen asleep while leaning on the manger, with angels caring for the baby Jesus.
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This is such a sweet picture.
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Roast is in the oven, and small trifle made (in a Glad container – not as pretty but more practical than the trifle bowl.) Roasting at a low temp (250) so it will take 3 hours or so, then will rest for a while and crank up the heat for browning.
Have to make the brussels and potato casserole, and I’m done.
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We reheated the turkey dinners I got at Bob Evans and it was delicious. We have enough left for another meal for each of us. I am actually overstuffed even though I tried not to be. After we ate, we had planned to watch a movie, but I goofed and waited too long to put dinner in the oven, so it was later than we had planned. My friend had to get home so she could walk her doggie before it got dark. 🙂
But, we found one movie on Amazon Prime, A Christmas Carol, that was only 22 min long. It was made in 1914 and, of course was silent. It moved through the story very quickly, obviously, but we both really enjoyed it.
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I haven’t watched any Christmas movies yet, but will probably watch Christmas in Connecticut and White Christmas tonight. I also love the Santa Clause movies.
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l have misplaced ALL my Christmas movies. They must have been put somewhere safe together. 🙄 Anyway, I watched It’s A Wonderful Life last night on my Amazon Firestick. I really love that movie. And, I rented National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation tonight. That one always makes me laugh.
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Did I mention that we got a couple of inches of snow, and the trees have that white adornment on every branch?
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No snow, but it did get cold, down in the 40’s. Loki doesn’t seem to care.
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Idiot black & white cat pushes through the door to go out, whether it is 90 degees or 29.
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Christmas blessings to everyone here! I don’t post very often, but I read frequently and tweet posts when I can!
May God be with us all in the new year–I expect he’ll be hearing that a lot…..
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I meant I don’t “comment” very often.
[It wouldn’t be from me if it didn’t have some sort of error…]
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Christmas blessings to you, Mary!
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Thank you, stella!
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🎄 Merry Christmas everyone! 🎄
Stopping by with an old favorite song! Hoping everyone had a great day!
I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day (Civil War background)
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Merry Christmas stevie!
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Merry Christmas Stella…hope your day was wonderful! 🤗😁🍷
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My Christmas dinner:
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I ate too much, but it was delicious.
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We had prime rib, too.
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“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

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