Welcome to the New Year!

Welcome to 2015! We hope your holidays have been as fun as ours.

For the most part we stuck to tradition again this year doing all the things we typically do: Kenny and Lori’s party on the 23rd, Christmas Eve service on the 24th, brunch at Mrs. Connie’s Christmas morning, and ringing in the new year in Georgia with the Jones family. There were also some activities unique to this year.

I think for me the what got me in the Christmas spirit more than anything else was a concert we had a church back on the 14th (in my haste I forgot to write this up last time). Lydia Gott, our previous Minister of Music, returned with her husband, Kyle, and their three kids to visit and treat us to songs of the season. Their music was good, but more than that it was good to reconnect with old friends. I think that’s what made the evening so special.

The Monday before Christmas (the 22nd) we decided to surprise Mom with a trip to see the lights and decorations at Opryland Hotel. She had not been over there in several years and really enjoyed it, as did the rest of us. When we saw all there was to see at the hotel we headed over to the Cock of the Walk for supper. We had seen this restaurant for years but never tried it. Now we have a new place to return to next time we are in that area. After supper we drove through Jellystone Park, an RV campground also in the Opryland area, where they have a huge Christmas light display that is choreographed to music. All you do is tune your radio to a low power station they have set up and enjoy the show as you drive through the campgrounds. Mom was having so much fun she was playing air piano in the dashboard.

We kept Christmas itself pretty low key this year. Everyone got a few things on their wish list but there were no big ticket items this time. We did splurge a bit by going out to see a couple of movies--Mockingjay, Part 1 and The Hobbit, Part 3--both of which we enjoyed.

Looking back, these last two weeks have been slow and quiet, something I think we all needed. We were busy, but we didn’t overdo, and I think that was absolutely the best Christmas present any of us could have asked for.

Joe