Merry Christmas!

Just hours after I wrote last we have a cold front blow in and cool things off quite a bit. Things eventually warmed up, but then another front came through packing a lot of wind and cooling things off once again. Now there’s a possibility of snow in the forecast.

MIDDLE-EARTH. Last weekend we went to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. It was good, but boy, was it long. I’m going to reserve some judgement until I see the next two movies, but I left wondering if it was a mistake to stretch the tale into a trilogy. (The original plan was to make a two-part film.) I also left wondering how much artistic license they took and how much extra material they pulled from the appendices to The Lord of the Rings. Long as it was we had a good time together which is what matters.

OUR STOCKINGS ARE ALL HUNG UP BY THE CHIMNEY WITH CARE and we are hoping Saint Nick will soon be here. This is not to say we are completely ready for Christmas, we aren’t. We haven’t sent out a single Christmas card. We’ve decided that’s going to have to be one of those post-holiday projects.

COUNT DOWN TO THE HOLIDAY. Our last day of school was Wednesday and the kids were counting it down. Jenna got out a little earlier since her exams were over. At one point Nate wanted me to figure it to the exact minute, and while I understand his excitement I told him to stick to counting the days. The kids are really fortunate this year that they have two and a half weeks off. Several of the other school systems around aren’t quite so generous.

It’s always hard as a parent to find a balance between playtime, chores, and other uses of time when your kids are on their break. You want them to have a good balance of all. The boys would say we didn’t find that balance at first because we tackled cleaning the house to get things in order for Christmas.

CHRISTMAS PARTIES. The big reason everyone got pulled into cleaning the house was that we hosted a Christmas party for my Sunday School class Saturday night. Ten folks were able to come and we enjoyed eating, visiting, and a quick game of Dirty Santa.

Yesterday after church we invited Mom and Jimmie and Susanne Pitt to come over for lunch. We eat leftovers from the party and a chance to just visit.

Last night saw us at the annual party over at Kenny and Lori’s. It’s always fun to stop and catch up with your neighbors there and I enjoyed it.  What we thought was funny was that Wil told all the kids to bring their Nerf guns because he was stocking up on plenty of Nerf ammo. Our boys were all over that and came home from church excited about the upcoming battle that evening. They even told Vicki not to be alarmed if she heard unusual noises from upstairs because they would be “in training.” Sure enough, upon arriving at the party the boys headed downstairs where I suspect a good time was had by all.

MARRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! It is not my habit to write this in the morning, but since it is Christmas Eve I thought this morning was as good a time as any. I am about to get ready for the day so I can make boiled custard for tomorrow and do some last minute gift wrapping. Vicki is going to look through her purchases and make a last minute shopping run if needed. Then there’s the Christmas Eve service at church tonight.

Whatever your day looks like, we wish you a very Merry Christmas -- and to all a good night...

Joe