January 1 – “How did you ring in the New Year?”

Our New Year’s Eve around this house was nice and … quiet.  Just the two of us all day.  I spent most of the morning working on a teaching for Sunday while Chris started one of the most tedious projects of the entire year … taking down Christmas.  I joined her when I reached a good stopping point, and between the two of us we got all of the inside decorations boxed up.  Then we attacked the outside lights and got them down as well.  Didn’t take us long at all, considering it was 42 degrees outside. Record time.  So now everything Christmas–y is stashed away in the attic or a closet, awaiting the Saturday after Thanksgiving next year.  Well, not exactly everything.  There are still three Santas on the table, waiting for a new home box.  Oh, and the nativity scene I carved, complete with its brand new angel, is sitting there, too.  The angel is the cause of its dislocation from last year’s box.  The wingspan makes it too big for conventional storage.  Looks like a trip to WalMart for a new Christmas box is in order. 

The rest of the evening we did … well, we didn’t DO much of anything.  We just were together.  No parties.  No special New Year’s Eve concoctions.  Just us.  We halfheartedly watched a few of the football games.  We took a Face Time call from Josiah and Noa.  Josiah had to tell Nana that he was sick.  Noa just heard our voices and had to get into the action.  We both read through our FaceBook feeds a multitude of times.  Always fun to see what sort of shenanigans our friends are getting into.  Chris read her new book and dozed off and on.  It’s great for me to be able to say she was the one dozing.  Of course I did my share as well.  When it gat dark outside we had the joy of listening to Abby and Scooter, Cailyn’s dogs (we are dogsitting while they are in Corpus Christi), bark at the preponderance of fireworks all around us.  Some of them were pretty loud, too, so I can’t say I blame the neighborhood newcomers.  But it won’t be long and they will be dealing with that sort of noise all the time.  Nathan and April finally closed on their house just before the new year.  Probably by the end of January they will be living just about two minutes away from us.  Cuts down their work commute time considerably.  And it makes it much easier for us to swap tools back and forth.  I finally woke Chris up at 10:59:57 to complete the New York countdown and share our New Year’s kiss.

Our plans for today?  I know Baylor plays at 11:30.  I’m sure Chris has plans for our lunch to include the traditional New Year’s fare of ham and black-eyed peas and cabbage.  Beyond that?  I could get used to this “just us” time every so often.  But then those kids are sure a lot of fun to have around …

Psalms 96:1-3 says, “Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth.  Sing to the Lord, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day.”

Father, thank you for giving us one more shot at this living thing.  We’ll need you this year more than ever.  Amen.