My First Christmas

No, those are not the words on an infant's decoration or toy - those are to me!

For a multitude of reasons, my family has never celebrated Christmas much. The most we've done is attend the occasional Christmas Eve service or participate in my dad's family's gift exchange. I think those two events might have even happened on the same year! My reasons have never been particularly profound - mainly the typical "It's commercialized and nobody is paying attention to Christ's birth, so I'm not about to join in," sort of reasons.

One of the great things about being married is that there's another point of view and a different thought process that is with you every day - questioning and prodding one's own viewpoints.

If nobody is celebrating Christmas the "right" way, how should it be celebrated?
Why don't I celebrate it the "right" way regardless of others?
Are all the gift-giving, trees, and lights bad ideas, or is being distracted by them the problem?

After being bumped from my standard rut of being something of a Scrooge about Christmas, I've partly resettled. Not particularly far from where I was, but certainly far enough that I gladly enjoyed and joined with the in-law portion of my family for my first Christmas! We even had a very white Christmas!

StG was good enough to give us a ride out to the airport at 4:00 in the morning. I think that I, for the first time, saw Charlessa grumpy that morning! The poor alarm clock is supposed to be making a really annoying sound! :^)

But in spite of getting up at an ungodly hour, we had a great trip out to KS and arrived around noon. We were even in good spirits after we each grabbed naps on the flights!

Early morning basketball games, going out to feed the cattle, hauling hay bales, playing with Magnetix, spending lots of lazy days sipping "friendship tea", watching the snow pour and drift, shoveling LOTS of snow, building a snowman, playing with Magnetix, reading the Bible, visiting with family and extended in-family, going caroling, more basketball games, singing hymns and carols around the piano, discussing the Church and Bible, sharing presents with each other, playing with Magnetix, and teasing LG - it was a GOOD Christmas!

Certainly nothing very exciting, but very, VERY nice!

While I still haven't congealed my thoughts on Christmas celebration, this was a pretty good way to go about it! :^)