At
the Christmas Eve service Cailyn shyly approached me and told me what she asked
Santa for when she saw him. “I told him
that I wanted my DadDad to get better faster.”
Nathan was standing there. He
prodded her to continue, “And what did Santa say when you told him that?” She looked up at me with those beautiful
brown eyes of hers and said, “He said he would pray for you.” Wow.
That Santa. He still loves
Jesus. Can you think of anyone better to
have praying for your recovery? Nathan
told me that Santa had tears in his eyes as he listened to Cailyn’s
request. That’s a special memory, for
sure.
Speaking
of memories, Chris and I have a special tradition at Christmas time. I like to carve something for her. Not a big deal, really. It started back when we first got married and
would get a live tree. You know how they
cut the bottoms off of the tree can suck up water more effectively? I started carving something out of that
remnant. We eventually had to get an
artificial tree because of allergies in the family, so I had to find wood
elsewhere, but the tradition caught hold.
And it started to morph. After we
got to Seaside and I had a bit of input over the Christmas Eve worship service,
I started throwing in a clue as to the existence of the carving. Sometimes I wrote a children’s Christmas
story. Sometimes I just hid mention of the
carving in the regular flow of the service.
This year was one of the latter. I
simply used the artifacts around me as illustrations of love and protection and
strength. And what better artifact this
year than … my walker. Yep. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to carve my
walker. Even has a tiny little
tooty-toot on it. Great fun. I love that woman.
We
went over into Texas on Christmas morning. LaMarque, to be exact. Kel’s kiddos invited us over to watch them
open presents. Among other things, Kel got
a game. Christina was excited about a
pair of boots. Not sure if she was more
excited to have the boots or that Kel actually bought the, and “got it right.” Jachin unwrapped a baseball from Noa. She found it around the house and knew he
always carried one around with him.
Sweet. Noa was most excited with
what at first appeared to be a phone.
But closer inspection revealed it to be a phone-shaped make-up kit. Needless to say, she was eye-shadowed and
lipsticked in seconds. Josiah was a bit
bumfuzzled when he opened a large box that contained … a dog leash. Puzzled, he said, “But we don’t have a dog.” Christina replied, “Would you like to go get
one?” Well of course. It took a bit of assurance as to its reality,
but it finally sank in. He was going to
get to pick out a dog in the next week or so.
He was lost for the rest of the morning in SPCA and shelter websites. Ezra was more practcal in his expression of
excitement. Never saw a little kid get
so excited about … toothpaste. He even
had to try it out right then. My favorite
reveal from their house, however, came when Micah opened a box. Before pulling out the item he exclaimed, “It’s
one of those things that, you know, jumps around and around.” OK, so is it a rabbit? “On the screen.” Any clue yet?
As he pulled it from the box and revealed it to us, he added, “You
know. It’s one of those Pixar things.” Sure enough, he held up an adjustable lamp
like the Pixar logo that jumps around on the screen as if it is alive before
their movies begin. Hope that Pixar thing
helps with providing you some light for bedtime reading, Micah.
After
we got home we did a quick FaceTime with the Waco bunch. They were pretty excited about their gifts a
swell. I’m pretty sure AnnaGrace got
some headbands. A girl can’t have too
many of those. Luke was excited about
his book on basketball. Caleb was lost
in another world. He had a virtual
reality headpiece strapped on and he was in the middle of a World War I dogfight. Can’t distract Aces like Snoopy and Caleb
from their chase of the Red Baron. And
Zakary? Now Zak was wearing a shirt with
no sleeves and pants that only had one leg in them. I guess that means he was only good some of
the time this year. But he was most
excited about another gift that he won’t actually receive until they get here
this week … a kayak.
While
we talked to them we were receiving a phone call from another line. You guessed it. Cailyn received a new iPhone for Christmas. Ah, the stages of a little girl’s Christmas
experience. Headbands (AnnaGrace, 2 years old) ... Makeup (Noa, 5 years old) … iPhone (Cailyn, almost 10 years old). So sad we never had to live through those
kinds of milestones before. We went to
Cailyn’s house for lunch. Great roast
and gravy and rice. I even tried the
green beans with real onion floating around in them. Nice job on those, April. Among a myriad of other things Cailyn also
got a new bicycle. Strictly for exercise
and transportation, you know.
We
finally made our way back home and rested for a while. I still just get tired easy. Chris slept wrong the other day and has had
muscle spasms in her back ever since. She
is moving really slowly.
After
the rest we were invited across the street for supper with the Geran’s and
their families. A huge ham with all the
fixin’s greeted us over there. Those
neighbors are really spoiling us. Corey
mowed our grass the other day. And as if
that wasn’t enough, they gave us a Christmas present. It’s a game about touring the National Parks. Right up our alley, for sure. I would say we have pretty great neighbors, wouldn’t
you?
Psalms
119:133 says, “Direct my footsteps
according to your word; let no sin rule over me.”
Father,
thank you for our neighbors and family.
Give us the energy to keep up for the rest of the holiday experience. And would you ease that muscle spasm in Chris’
back? Amen.
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