Monday, December 27, 2004

Christmas was great and I made the conscious decision to be blog-free, although I had meant to post something on Christmas day. I just never got to it. I hope ya’ll had a wonderful Christmas weekend.

I spent the weekend at my parents’ house. I headed over there on Friday afternoon where we had an early dinner and then went to the last Christmas Eve service at our new church, which was wonderful. They opened the service with a very cool video that I can’t really describe (it won’t convey). We sang Christmas carols and then the message was preceded by another video - this one was a “man on the street” interview kind where folks who were out Christmas shopping were asked to tell the true Christmas story. Man, was that sad and hilarious all at once. So many of the folks didn’t even mention the birth of Jesus - one started to recite “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” two thought they were being asked about A Christmas Story. There was one, though, who captured the true meaning of Christmas beautifully - he explained about God’s love for mankind and how His son was born to pay the penalty for man’s sin. It was the perfect Gospel message. What made it even more special was that this guy was a dead ringer for Santa Claus, with a white beard, glasses, and a festive red sweater. He even wore the hat! The video closed with a shot of “Santa” walking away from the interviewer and as he moved into a wider shot, we saw that he was wearing khaki shorts with that red sweater - very amusing.

Christmas morning was pure joy - we adults watched CootieGirl open all of her presents before we even thought of opening our own. Her enthusiasm for each gift was fun to watch - and there was equal enthusiasm for all gifts. She got several puzzles and a cleaning set. Mom and Dad trumped my cleaning set (broom, mop, etc) with a child-sized Dirt Devil™ vacuum that makes authentic sounds. When Dad was vacuuming later that afternoon, she followed him with her own - so cute.

The cutest moment from CootieGirl (there were many) was during brunch on Christmas Day - we have a tradition of holding hands when we say the blessing before we eat. At some point after we had already started eating, she held out her hands to be held and bowed her head. So we prayed again and all said “Amen!” together, to which she said, “May-men!” and clapped. She did that several times during the other meals we ate together, too. Needless to say, our meals were well blessed.

Now on to the loot! I got some cool things. The best was the mini-frig for my home in the basement - now I don’t have to trudge upstairs to refill my Vanilla Diet Coke! I also got the ROTK: EE DVD as well as the soundtrack for that movie. I started to watch the extras yesterday and there’s some very cool stuff there - just the opening background info about Tolkien was fun. I loved that they talked about his faith and the influence of it in his writings. Also the information about his love for his wife made me teary.

I also got Seabiscuit and The Passion of the Christ DVDs and the soundtrack to The Passion..., too.

The tradition of odd dolls continued this year with the talking George W. Bush doll from my brother-in-law. The challenge is on for me to find something equally fun for him in 2005. I also got a page-a-day calendar of Bushisms - the good ones will get posted at the blog and there are many good ones.

Oh my! There’s a Turkey Dinner George W. Bush doll! Too funny.

I ended up spending Saturday night over there as well because we were all exhausted by the time the festivities ended in the evening. We went to church yesterday morning and then I headed home where I crashed in my cushy chair and watched the Redskins lose to Dallas in the closing seconds of the game. *sigh*

On a sad note, I got word yesterday that one of our deputies and his wife were killed in a car accident on the 23rd. He was due to retire on January 3rd. Please pray for their family - I can’t imagine the grief of losing family just days before Christmas and having to deal with the details of two funerals at this time of year.