Christmas celebrations at the beach might be popular in Honolulu or San Diego, but in Michigan not so much.

But our family has been seeking to establish new holiday traditions this year, after last year’s failures. Holding onto “the way we’ve always done it” without the head of our family who “always did it with us” was a disaster last year, so this year we started from scratch. After all, we’re a different family now, minus Nate and plus our three new babies.

Today, on Christmas afternoon, we made a fire at the beach in 28 degree weather, taking the little ones along and having a great time sledding down the small dunes. Nelson and Lars packed firewood in the pick-up and asked for an hour’s head start to get the fire going. It took us almost that long to dress five babies in their winter gear, and when we arrived with hot coffee and cookies, the fire was blazing.

Skylar remembered last summer’s visit to this same beach, and as she came over the dune she shouted, “Let’s get stones!” Unfortunately they were cemented to the sand by icy snow, although she quickly lost interest when her mittened fingers couldn’t pick them up anyway.

Our new tradition was 100% successful without tears or complaints from even the littlest ones, and I hope we can have a beach bonfire every Christmas Day.

All of us remembered last year’s holiday season with pain as we talked about our first Christmas without Nate, coming only seven weeks after he died. It’s been a challenging year with many ups and downs, and we’re thankful to be where we are today rather than in the sad holiday season of a year ago.

I like to think about God watching over us throughout our lives, knowing every circumstance that’ll come to each of us. He saw death take our husband and father decades before we knew anything about Nate’s cancer, and when the time came, God chose not to stop it. But he also saw today’s happy afternoon on a frosty beach and heard our laughter years before it came out of our mouths.

More than just seeing today, though, he also planned it, set it into motion, and supplied the stamina for us to get from the difficult Christmas of 2009 to the much better Christmas of 2010.

Our first choice would have been to have Nate with us in addition to our three new babies, but that family wasn’t one of our available choices. So we continue to make adjustments, looking for God’s steady blessing as we go, and today’s beach party was one of his good ones.

”No one is abandoned by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he also shows compassion because of the greatness of his unfailing love. For he does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow.” (Lamentations 3:31-33)