"Why, Soitenly!"

If I think about you at all, and you know I do, it is this time of year I want to see you again so badly. The years you came out to California and spent Christmas with us were the best Christmases ever! And that you would come and stay a month or so just made it better. We never got tired of having you around, though you did make us have to adjust our schedules … by telling you we needed to be somewhere at least 30 minutes earlier than we really needed to be there. Usually that got us there right on time! But part of who you were in our lives was that you were always late. For everything!

We spent Christmas morning at Josh’s house to enjoy the first Christmas in which the children came down the stairs to the delight of seeing what Santa brought them. Of course, the twins had no idea what was going on, but Jackson was just overwhelmed by it all! Logan immediately started his way back up the stairs laughing all the way, thinking he was really getting away with something. I was behind him and when he reached the top, he was so proud of himself … only to be taken back down the stairs to where we were trying to interest him in unwrapping gifts!

Josh and Heather did a great  job of making it a fun Christmas for them (and for us) while not spending a ton of money. None of us had much to spend this year, but it was a fun, funny, grandchild-filled day. The down side of it all is that Jessica got a cold from the twins, so she wasn’t worth much on Saturday. As I write this, she is still in bed on a cold, sunny, Sunday morning. We had our “weekend” worship service on Thursday night and our church isn’t meeting this morning so we’re doing something very, very strange for us … staying at home on a Sunday morning. When it warms up maybe I’ll go out and have a devo with Chipper.

Jackson is making the most of his being two years old. Jan and I don’t remember Josh nor Jessica going through that “terrible twos” syndrome, but I think Jackson has hit it full stride! He can throw a fit that would make Tara proud, and he can do it at the drop of a hat! So now Josh and Heather are trying to work through this while keeping some degree of sanity. They tell him, “Jackson, if you want ______, you’re going to have to ask nicely.” The other morning he wanted more pancakes. (He eats the little silver dollar ones that come frozen in a package of maybe 60.) He’d only had about 16 of them so far, and wanted some more, so he started throwing his little tantrum. He was told if he wanted more, he had to ask nicely, so he demanded said, “Nicely can I have more pancakes?” It’s hard to remain the disciplinarian when the kids are outsmarting you like that!

He also loves to take pictures with our iPhones (you would be amazed at what you can do with a cell phone these days) and often goes to the picture app and shoots away. I’ll get my phone back from him sometimes and go to the photos and there will be dozens of pictures in there of things such as the floor, a finger, Janice’s nose very close up, an ear, etc. Apparently he got his mother’s phone and took some snapshots while she was in the shower! Fortunately she discovered the photos before Jackson was able to figure out how to email them!

We got Lilly and Logan a keyboard that can be folded in half so that each one of them have a half-keyboard, facing each other, or it can be played as one long keyboard. Found it in a drug store for $5, marked down from $30 … we just happened to be in that store looking around while awaiting a call to go pick up a body on that side of town. Anyway, when they opened it and discovered it made sound, all three kids started pounding on it, only Lilly seems to be able to play it only if she is sitting on one half of the keyboard while beating on the other half! The children got LOTS of toys that makes LOTS of noise this year.

I guess we’ll look for a few spare minutes in the evenings this week to take down the outside lights and the tree, and store everything away for one more year. You remember how you eventually stopped decorating for Christmas after Dad died because it was just too much of a hassle and you were the only one living there to enjoy it? Well, I’m getting into that frame of mind as well. We just put up a tree with the barest of decorations and some lights outside and that was it. Seemed like just too much work to get it all down from the rafters over the garage when it’s just Jan and myself. Josh and Heather bring the kids by occasionally, but it is such a hassle to get them all in the car at once, it’s just easier on them if we go to their house rather than them coming over here.

We didn’t get presents wrapped until Christmas Eve and never put a single one under the tree … just stacked them in the living room so it would be easier to move them to the car when it was time to go over to Josh’s house. Just never got much into the spirit of the season this year other than enjoying the music of the season. We had a very good Christmas Eve service, but he music would have been far too loud for your comfort. The praise band opened with a couple of Trans-Siberian Orchestra songs and did a very good job on them before moving into the more traditional music.

You would love the preaching and the people at Chorus Church, but the volume of the music??? Well, this is a different generation we’re trying to reach and so the music is a far cry from what you and I grew up on but it does “speak the language” of the present generation. I love playing in the praise band with them and so far the only “complaint” from our worship leader and other musicians is that I don’t turn my amp up loud enough. Maybe I’m still trying to keep it down just in case you are listening in!

Maybe when it warms up this afternoon after Jessica heads home…I’ll start taking down the outside lights. Or not.

Lots of love on a post-Christmas / pre-New Year’s and final blog of 2009.