Excitement over what Christmas is *really* about

Here is a portion of a note I wrote last year on Christmas Eve. One year later, it still describes how I feel.

An excitement and a cry of gratitude rises up within me at this time of year. God really gave us the ultimate gift on Christmas--his one and only son. And he knew from the beginning that he was sending Jesus to earth only to have him die an excruciating death on the cross. Yet he did it anyway out of his love for us. Isn't that amazing?!

As I was reading the story, I thought, "What must it have been like to be alive in that moment--when Jesus took his first breath? The moment all of creation had been eagerly awaiting and preparing for since the beginning of time? Did it feel different? Was there a change in the atmosphere? Did some of those asleep awaken for no reason at all, and feel that something had changed? Were the animals suddenly alert? Did the rivers seem to dance with excitement?" I wish I could have been there. I was reminded of the song "2000 Decembers Ago" by Joy Williams which is pretty much a cry of these thoughts in musical form.

Jesus wasn't a plan B--he was part of the only plan there was all along--God doesn't have "back-up" plans. He had every detail planned out before he even created the world. As a very detailed-oriented person, I am constantly amazed at how God executes every tiny, seemingly miniscule detail of his plans perfectly. Matthew 1:17 reminded me of that, "Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ." I've read that verse before many times and in all likelihood, have even noticed what it was really saying before, but forgot.

But either way, our God is a God of details and perfect plans. He wasn't surprised when Caesar Augustus ordered a census to occur near the time of Jesus' birth. It didn't startle him when there was no room in the inn. He wasn't worried when Joseph's first reaction to the news was to quietly divorce Mary. It didn't catch him off guard when Herod found out where he was born and ordered all infants under the age of two to be killed. He was ready. And I'm sure that when Jesus took his first breath, God smiled and laughed with joy; his son had arrived on earth, God in flesh, to save all mankind. What a joyous moment! The earth will never the same.

Okay, so you don't think I'm preaching a Christmas sermon (and I know that you are all busy and don't have time to read a long note), I'll conclude. I hope you all have a merry Christmas, and if you haven't really been excited by the true meaning of Christmas yet this season, I would encourage you to take just a moment and read the Matthew and Luke accounts of the story (they're not long) and ask God to speak to you out of his Word. It'll work, I promise. ;)

Merry Christmas!

Santa Cow is comin' to town!

For my final broadcast journalism project this semester, I covered the Santa Cow Kids Night event at my former second home, Chick-fil-A at Kingston Overlook. For the assignment, we couldn't just cover the event, we also had to take either a personality profile, problem-solution, or issue-oriented angle to it. So I chose to interview the Kids Night hostess and try to write a personality profile event package.

I also had to shoot two as-live stand-ups as my intro and outro. My lead-out is kind of dumb, but when I shot it I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to script the package yet. So I had to keep it general and simple. In addition, I also had to shoot man on the street interviews. Let's just say it gets interesting trying to interview kids (It was fun though! They're so cute!) without intimidating them with the microphone and big video camera/tripod ensemble.

But despite the additional requirements, I had a blast reporting and interacting with some of my friends and former co-workers. I always enjoyed working Santa Cow night. Yeah, it was busy and crazy, but we always had more employees scheduled to accommodate the additional customers, so (in theory) we could handle it. It was usually my night, so I always got excited about seeing how much extra business we could do. I'll have to pull out some of my Santa Cow pictures from last year. My crew and I had a little fun. :)

Here's the video if would like to watch it:


Santa Cow comes to town from Liz Overton on Vimeo.

It's Christmas time in the city

I've got to give it to our city's leaders. Over the past several years they have really tried to come up with ways to make the city more festive and have planned some nice holiday events for Knoxville to host. Here's a list of many of the key Christmas events going on around Knoxville throughout the rest of the month. I particularly enjoy the ice skating rink and holiday decorations in Market Square.

Another good local event to check out if you can is the Clarence Brown Theater's production of A Christmas Carol. I went to see it last year and plan to go again this year. They do an awesome, awesome job! Definitely worth going to see (if you're a UT student you get in for $5 with your student ID).

So if you're looking for something to do to celebrate the season over the next few weeks, check out some of these events!