Merry Christmas

We're leaving for Nebraska in about twelve hours and I can't wait. We visited family there in July, but since we have two nieces there under the age of three it's hard to let that much time pass between visits. We're making the drive with all four dogs so it will be an adventure.

When I was growing up my mom always walked around the house singing, "Oh I yus go nuts at Christmas, it's a yolly holiday" at every available opportunity. I tell people that sometimes and they look at me like I'm a total loon and the only one in the world who has ever heard that song. Maybe they're just not familiar with those intricate German phrasings of "just" and "jolly." Swap j's with y's and anything can become German. Unless it's my first name and then it becomes Japanese. Anyway, there will be moments of full-on "Oh I yus go nuts at Christmas" choruses at my parents' house in the coming days and I can't wait. It's always the times of silly, fun bonding that provide the most vivid memories and make you want to visit them again.

Pat Saxon wrote today's devotion for Cathedral of Hope and she echoed the thoughts of many when she said:

"I wonder what miraculous and unlikely birth awaits you this Christmas season? Don't say it can't happen. Though you may feel as if it's the dead of winter in your life, as if it's the darkest of nights, God gestates the seed of new life, which in the fullness of time will be born. Sarah, Elizabeth, Lazarus, Paul, to name but a few, all discovered this truth. Christ is born in us ordinary men and women this day, this season, in the coming seasons. That is truly a Christmas miracle.

Holy God, I give you thanks for unlikely birth, birth that comes from death and pain, birth that comes from barrenness, birth that comes even to our homeless hearts. All praise and glory to you for the wonder of incarnation, the incarnation of your Son, our savior Jesus Christ, and for the incarnation of the Christ-self in us. Amen."

Have a blessed Christmas.