Christmas

This has been a very different Christmas for us. We had no kids at home. It is the first Christmas since 1981 that we have had no kids at home for Christmas. In case you're counting, we were married in 1981 and Kira was born in 1982. That is 34 years. We have made an effort to get our kids scheduled to come to our home one year and the in-laws home the next year. We have been fortunate enough to make that happen. It is great when they are all here but it's a bit of a bummer when they're all gone. I was expecting it to be a rather depressing Christmas but as it turned out, it was quite relaxing.

First of all we decided to buy a small Christmas tree and because it was a small Christmas tree it took no time to decorate it. Christmas morning we slept in, I don't remember ever sleeping in on Christmas morning so already the day was off to a good start. I figured we would eat a nice relaxing breakfast but kids started calling before that could happen so I didn't actually get breakfast until almost lunch time. In fact, we spent a good part of the day on the phone with kids. It was fun talking to them. We Skyped with Kira's kids but Brandons family was at the Quinns so we didn't skype with them until Friday.

Just so we wouldn't be completely alone all day we invited the Sister Missionaries for dinner. Lisa just had to cook a turkey and that would be overkill for just the two of us. Actually it was overkill for the four of us but I have enjoyed turkey sandwiches and turkey soup for the last week.

And I did make apple pie. I usually have one of my daughters helping me but this year I did it all alone. It still tasted very good.

What was especially fun is that the sisters were able to skype with their families and they did that from our house. Sister Saidon is from Thailand and we got to meet her family. It was very cool. It is also fun to see how peoples traditions are so different from ours. When her mother came on the TV Sr Saedon put the palms of her hands together in front of her and bowed to her mother. It was really cool. They then sang to us in Thai and we sang back to them.

Sr Wang was just as cool. Her entire family is on a mission at this very moment. Her mother is in Hawaii, one brother is in Mexico and she has another brother in Vancouver, BC. They were all on the Skype call together. They all received their calls the same day and they gave their farewells the same day. Her mother gets off in a few weeks and she is coming to San Diego to pick up their daughter and then they are travelling home together. They will be companions.

We were going to go out on New Years eve but that didn't happen. We first made plans to go see Balboa Park. Apparently they had something going on there but then we were invited to go play games with the Bagleys and that sounded like fun but then Lisa got sick and we just stayed home and watched movies. That was fun too. At midnight I kissed her on the cheek because I do NOT want to get sick.

The other first for this year was that we got the house completely undecorated on New Years day.

I'm usually trying to find a place to take the tree in the middle of January.

So as it turned out Christmas wasn't nearly as quiet and boring as I was expecting. I'm sure glad they invented telephones.

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 Religious groups give 4 times as much as secular groups.

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