Merry Christmas!!!

My favourite part about Christmas is hanging out with my crazy, lovable family. I remember being twelve or thirteen, not understanding why Mom was so enamored with “family time” (to me it would’ve been a lot more fun to read in my room or go off with my friends). And now that I only see them around the holidays — now that every time I’m home, Krista has another tooth missing and James has grown another two inches and Kira looks more and more beautiful and John has grown another foot and Kelli has stories of her own college experience to tell — now, I think I get it. It feels so right to be together, whether the kids are opening presents at the kitchen table while Kelli, Mom and I make pies and stuff the turkey, or whether we’re all ensconced in the living room oohing and aahing over each gift. But the richest part is the sense of family identity and history — the pet names on the gift tags, the inside jokes, the Neccos and shortbread cookies in our stockings, even the not-so-saccharine moments like Dad being banished from the kitchen for opening the turkey roasting bag when it was supposed to stay sealed for 15 minutes after cooking. And it’s never boring. John opened his first cologne (addressed to “Handsome Hunk” from “Beautiful Babes” — his adoring sisters, of course) to much laughter and applause. James wore his plastic “carpet skis” (a gift from Kelli that straps on over your shoes and lets you slide around on the carpet) all day — and showed me  how to disable the child safety lock on the electric candle lighter. Krista donned her new bridal veil, shimmery elbow-length gloves, leotard, and stick-on earrings, waving her fairy godmother wand around the room. And, inspired by Barry Manilow’s voice crooning from her new CD, Mom exclaimed, “Oh, honey, we have to dance!” and she and Dad did, their spins and turns bounded by bags of used wrapping paper and met with shrieks of delighted laughter as we yanked our new treasures out of the way.

But perhaps the best moment of this whole holiday season was Krista ecstatically screaming, “This is a true Christmas miracle!” as she paraded our long-lost Jenny around the house. Shy, pudgy, green-eyed Jenny had been missing for six weeks and all but Krista had given up hope. The world isn’t friendly to an indoor cat, and the snowstorms and record-breaking windstorm of the last month and a half made her survival seem impossible. But this morning, Mom saw a black-and-white cat run across the yard, and Kira sped outside with a flashlight to look under the deck (where Jenny hid for days once before). There in the furthest corner she crouched — and in a few minutes, she was back inside, thin and cold but very much alive. “We just had to have faith,” beamed Krista. And I pray she’ll remember her own words as she grows older — for our God is faithful and He pours out blessings even when we don’t expect them.

Merry Christmas, once again, and may He fill you with joy and peace!