A Good Christmas

I am much more likely to use “One Thing I Know” as a place to complain and whine than I am to post happy thoughts, so I thought tonight I would try to balance the scales a little bit by telling you that I had a very good Christmas this year.  I received some great presents for one.

• 6 pairs of socks (very much needed) and the music CD from the movie Pan’s Labyrinth (from my lovely daughter),
• Two great new books:  Foreskin’s Lament by Shalom Auslander (see this post) and The Good Wife by Stewart O’Nan (one of my favorite writers) from Jim,
• Some cash (always appreciated) and gift certificates for Borders (from some great friends), and I promptly went to my wishlist on Amazon and bought the following items I had been wanting:  Seasons 3, 4 and 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Seasons 1, 3, 4, and 5 of Angel (my collection for both is now complete!), and the following books: The Seeds of Heaven: Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew and Gospel Medicine by Barbara Brown Taylor; Falling Into the Face of God: Forty Days and Nights in the Judean Desert by William J. Elliott; and This Beautiful Mess: Practicing the Presence of the Kingdom of God by Rick Mckinley.  There are very few items left on my wishlist, so I will soon have to add some for all you folks who want to buy my something (ha ha).

Even better than these monetary gifts, I got to spend some great time with Desiree, and on Saturday we went to see one of the best two movies of this past year:  Juno (the other one being No Country for Old Men)  I can’t give enough praise to either of these movies (though they are at opposite extremes when it comes to attitude and atmosphere).  Also my girl is the apple of my eye, and I couldn’t have been prouder when I went to her Facebook profile today and saw the following (see text underlined in read):

Our church services also went very well on Sunday and Christmas Eve.  We had over 125 people on Sunday for our Choral Cantata, and then 192 for our two Christmas Eve services.  I think I even preached half-way decent sermons at the services as well.  Special thanks to Jim, who worked a full day for the postal service, attended the 7 pm service with his family, and then led the singing at our 11 pm service.  I know it was an extremely long day for him, but, at least from my perspective, it was worth it.  It was so nice to experience Christmas both in a packed sanctuary filled with people and pageantry (wonderful organ, choral, special and handbell music) and in a small intimate setting with communion.  I couldn’t have asked for anything more when it came to celebrating the day of Jesus’ birth!

Yes, all in all, it was a good Christmas.