Archive for the ‘Christmas’ Category

• Merry Christmas!

  Date: 2008.12.28 | Category: Christmas, family is everything | Response: 4

  I hope you all had a great Christmas! This is my favorite time of year and I just love spending time with my family, eating great food, observing fun traditions and spoiling my babies. Here are a few pictures of our holiday.

  

  Love you all! Have a great New Year!

• Ah-Ma-Zing Dessert

  Date: 2008.12.28 | Category: Christmas, family is everything, food | Response: 0

  We always have Christmas Eve dinner at my parent’s house – lamb chops and chutney and all the fixings. Yummy! And I made an amazing dessert – thanks to all of my twitter followers who voted on the winning recipe! It was fabulous… Here’s the recipe: (from Epicurious)

  Let me know if you try this out! It’s really easy and soooooo good. My nephew Gabriel said he wanted to bury his face in it he thought it was so good. Now THAT’S a good endorsement…

  
  Triple-Chocolate Pudding Pie with Cappuccino Whipped Cream

  Ingredients

  Crust:

  • 9 whole chocolate graham crackers
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • Pinch of salt
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

  Filling:

  • 1 1/4 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/4 cup cornstarch
  • 3 1/2 cups half and half
  • 4 large egg yolks
  • 3 1/2 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped
  • 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  Topping:

  • 1 cup chilled whipping cream
  • 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

  • Chocolate-covered espresso beans
  

  Preparation

  For crust:
  Preheat oven to 350°F. Finely grind graham crackers, sugar, and salt in processor. Add butter and blend to moisten crumbs. Firmly press mixture into 9-inch-diameter glass pie dish. Bake until crust sets, about 8 minutes. Cool.

  For filling:
  Whisk sugar, cocoa, and cornstarch in heavy medium saucepan. Gradually whisk in 1 cup half and half. Whisk in remaining 2 1/2 cups half and half and yolks. Whisk over medium-high heat until mixture thickens and boils, whisking constantly, about 12 minutes. Remove from heat. Add both chocolates and butter; whisk until melted and smooth. Mix in vanilla. Transfer filling to crust. Press plastic wrap directly onto surface of filling and chill until filling sets, at least 6 hours. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep chilled.)

  For topping:
  Beat all ingredients in large bowl until peaks form. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate. Rewhisk to thicken before serving, if necessary.)

  Peel plastic off pie. Cut pie into wedges. Spoon dollop of cream atop each slice. Garnish with chocolate-covered espresso beans and serve.

• Merry Christmas for real

  Date: 2008.12.24 | Category: Christmas | Response: 1

  Abs,

  I love you too much to let this go until morning. I hope you enjoy the new blog and real theme. If you are reading this and missed the fake one, sorry.

  We’ll tweak more over the next few days.

  Merry Christmas,

  Your Big Brother (not the government… your real big brother)

• Merry Christmas

  Date: 2008.12.24 | Category: Christmas | Response: 5

  

  Merry Christmas Abbye. I hope you enjoy your new blog.

  Your loving brother,

  Bryan

  Why are you crying Abbye? You don’t like the design I picked out for you?

• Pictures Are Up!

  Date: 2008.01.10 | Category: Christmas, creativity | Response: 0

  

  The rest of the Imagine Christmas Photos are all up! Millie is the best!

  So, click HERE to view or order prints.

• More Pics…Imagine That…

  Date: 2007.12.18 | Category: Christmas | Response: 0

  

  So, you can go here and see more pictures of Imagine Christmas. Millie is the best!

  Let me know what you all think!

• Imagine Christmas…

  Date: 2007.12.17 | Category: Christmas | Response: 0

  Well, it’s over! I can’t believe it…it was absolutely amazing! Everyone really stepped up and our team just blew me away! Both shows were packed and the energy in the building was so cool! From the carolers in the parking lot to the cookies and cider in the lobby, the atmosphere just screamed “Christmas”! I will write more later and post more pictures but now I have to clean my house that I have neglected for the past month…yuck!

  Theses pictures are from my dear friend, Millie Holloman. She is an amazing photographer and I am grateful that she agreed to shoot the show for us… This first one is our two angels (Pastor Matthew and my smoochie, Don) and Mary (Karen Pray). The set is from the incredibly selfless Valerie Bowden and her team…

  

  This is our cloud angel, Taia Baker. She was fearless and agreed to fly from our angel deck 15 feet above the crowd…you rock, girl!

  

  If you saw the show, I would love to hear your thoughts. Leave some comment love, please!

• Imagine What Can Happen…

  Date: 2007.12.12 | Category: Christmas | Response: 0

  Four days until Imagine Christmas…

  This has been such a rewarding experience for me. From the day we started planning for this event I have felt the hand of God on us as we have ventured into new territory. This production is HUGE! So many details have kept me up at night….last minute glitches and fixes that are just part of the deal. I think the biggest thing for me has been seeing how people have caught the vision and stepped up to help. So many of you have spent countless personal hours making this happen and have given your financial resources to make this great.

  So, if you have not yet made plans to be here for Imagine Christmas – do whatever it takes to clear your schedules and get yourself here this weekend! Bring your friends and family – especially if they don’t know the Lord…they are ones we are doing this for. The message of salvation is the most important message they will ever hear and we are going to bring it to them in a way they would never expect. You can go here and send an e-mail invitation to everyone you know!

  We have a few surprises up our sleeves, so don’t miss it. Don’t be late because you won’t get a seat! (Come early and hear some festive Caroling and get some free Christmas Goodies, too!)

• Pastor Bryan In His Finest Hour

  Date: 2007.12.11 | Category: Christmas | Response: 0

  

  I really love my brother – I think he’s the only one around here crazy enough to do this job….and he let’s us take pictures like this.

  By the way….only five more days!
  

• The Process

  Date: 2007.12.06 | Category: Christmas, creativity | Response: 0

  We are 10 days away from our biggest production event in the history of this church. We have really stepped out into new territory with this project and I am so grateful for all of the countless hours of volunteer work, my incredible staff and the grace of God throughout this process. Thank you, Willow Creek, for such amazing material that got us started on our journey to Imagine Christmas.

  Several months ago, we were brainstorming in a creative meeting about what we wanted to do for Christmas. Every year for the past 4 years or so we have continued to “step it up a notch” in the level of artistic excellence that we presented to the community and we knew that the step this year was going to be a big one. Instead of starting from scratch and coming up with a completely new concept, we searched and dug around until we found the Willow Creek Christmas show that they did last year. I knew immediately that this was the one. It had all the elements I was looking for – creative ingenuity, artistic excellence, visual beauty, biblical integrity and the utilization of all of the senses. Now our challenge was to adapt this production from a church of thousands to one of 500. This was quite the challenge. There will be more posts later outlining the process a bit more – but for now I don’t want to spoil the surprise!

  But my team has been best – and I’m not surprised. Carolyn, my assistant and our media director, has been absolutely indispensable and has organized every facet of anything technical as well as helping me with the artistic elements of the show and every bit of advertising. I love her – and I never want to do anything like this without her! Melanie Haulman, my artistic director over at Glory Academy of Fine Arts has spent countless hours volunteering her time to choreograph and rehearse every piece of dance in this show – and that is a lot of dancing! Whew! Mel, you are an incredible woman of God who is completely selfless and willing to give your best to the Lord as worship – I love you! Valerie Bowden – my Lord….I have lost count of how many hours she has spent designing and constructing our set. She is superwoman… You are all going to be blown away by what her team has done…

  Every singer, musician and actor has given over and above what is required – thank you so much, team, for sacrificing your time and your gifts so we might reach this city with the life-changing message of our Savior.

  As we near the end of our preparation time and move toward performance and ministry time, let’s all remember why we are here. It’s not to be recognized for our individual talent or contribution to this endeavor or to receive any glory for ourselves. This is for the glory and honor of our Lord and to spread His message of hope to the over 100,000 people in our city who do not know Him. This is what we are called to do, people! All around us, people are searching for something and we have the answer – this is why we are busting our butts to present something that is excellent and mind-blowing. This city has never seen a church present something like this – so we need to bring it…whatever it takes…let’s give it all – lay it all out there and see a city changed.

  Still want to volunteer to help next weekend? There are still places to serve…leave me a comment or call the office and we’ll get you working.