A Quiet Christmas and Family Visit for the New Year

We had a great Christmas and New Years. We started out with a family dinner consisting of just ourselves. It was very nice. We had turkey, cranberry sauce and stuffing. Best of all afterwards, we read the Christmas story from the gospel of Luke. The reason I was glad we had our own family Christmas celebration is that the normal family Christmas celebration on both sides of our family is 99.9% secular. The only exception is the brief prayer before we eat. It was great to spend some time celebrating and talking with the children about the real meaning of Christmas.

On Christmas day, we had a very nice time with my wife's family the next day at her cousin's house. Most of her family attended including her grandfather who will be 90 years old in March.

For the rest of the week, I did little more than computer work. First, it was the year end for my company so I was trying to see what more I could do to contribute to the end-of-year sales effort. In spite of my best efforts, it did not amount to too much since my customers were all on vacation.

Second, I had hurt a back muscle lifting the seats out of the minivan. I should have been more careful but I was a little too confident in my own abilities. Now many Biblical proverbs on pride come to mind in regard to my former attitude. My week has been one where my back felt pretty normal during the day as long as I am standing or sitting properly, but sleeping has been really difficult. By God's grace it is getting a bit better everyday and my back is almost normal.

On New Years Eve, my mother, my brother Pat, and three children arrived. One of the children was Pat's child Liam and the other two were my sister's two - Bridget and Jimmy. We all enjoyed there company. The kids of course had a great time. My brother Pat and I went out for a small ride around our area. Danielle was getting a bit worried because we were gone quite a while. We had driven up near Quantico and I had remembered that the new US Marines Museum had just been opened. We went in to have a peek. It was incredible! The museum even have a booth were you can experience a Marine Training Instructor yelling at you. We probably spent 50 minutes going around when I remembered that we had better get home. On New Year's Day, my brother James and his wife Leslie came all the way from Philadelphia. It was great to see them.

One fly in the ointment. Mairead was sick on night of New Year's Eve. She was vomiting every 20-30 minutes. This continued for about 4 hours. Danielle was up most of the night with her. When she was absolutely exhausted she woke up yours truly to take over. Yesterday, everyone else was coming down with the same sickness. It was a busy night - emptying pots, removing sheets and putting dirty items in the washer/dryer. The funniest thing was Danielle waking me up and telling me that the baby was sick again. She was dreaming and could not separate her dream from reality. She got me up and insisted that I help the baby. The baby was of course fine. This episode reminded me very much of my own mother who has very strong dreams that sometimes cause her to wake thinking they were true. So far Aidan and I have escaped having the virus but you never know. God's will.

I hope everyone else had a great Christmas and we pray God would bless you in the coming year.