As I wind up my thoughts for 2015 I need to say a little about our Christmas activities. An early Christmas event for us was hosting a Sunday School class lunch after church the Sunday before last (the 20th). We’ll need to do this again as several had family events at that time (understandably) but we had a great time with those who were able to come.
We did our share of shopping and gift wrapping in the days leading up to Christmas. By Christmas Eve we were headed to church for the Christmas Eve service. Of note here was that Keaton Raglin sang Silent Night as a solo and really nailed it.
Christmas morning began for us with our traditional gifting. We kept it pretty small this year. The boys are into video games so they got several accessories there. Also in the mix of the gifts were books, clothes, and candy. By 10:00 we were over at Mrs. Connie’s for brunch. We decided this year our gift exchange would be limited to gift cards and a game of Dirty Santa.
Kenny deserves a little grief here. Lori had sent Kenny to Walmart to get their gift cards with the instructions to get several different cards. What she really meant was for him to get an assortment of gift cards for different businesses to make things interesting. Somewhere there was a breakdown in communication because Kenny came home with a stack of gift cards, all for Walmart, but each with a different picture on it.
Kenny, I’m with you. I think you just earned a selective listening power-up on your man card. Women, here’s a suggestion for a new year’s resolution: s-p-e-l-l i-t o-u-t f-o-r y-o-u-r m-e-n. We’d really appreciate that.
Later that day I went over the the Freeland’s house as Brent, Sabrina, and their family were in. We spent over an hour catching up which I thoroughly enjoyed. Then we took supper over to Mom’s and wound up our gift giving with her.
This past Sunday was another full day. We had a lunch to recognize Kelly Raglin’s departure as our Worship Leader and Administrator. He’s had a tough job to do in the last couple of years and performed it well. His leaving marks the last of a complete turnover in paid staff in the last 18 months.
That evening we gathered at Kenny and Lori’s house for their annual Christmas party (which had been rescheduled from Wednesday). Again, another great time to reconnect with friends, some of whom I had not seen in years.
I had driven to the party separately so I could pick Mom up and the rest of the family beat me home afterwards. When I got in I learned that a possum made the poor choice of waddling out into the road right at the last minute. Ben was driving and there simply was no way he could avoid hitting it.
After the initial shock of hitting the critter and all the screaming, Nate, who was cleaning his glasses, frantically asked, “What happened?!? I always miss out on all the fun!” At least it wasn’t a skunk.
Joe
