December Update

Well, my Buffalo Bills playoff hopes are pretty much gone for this year again.  I guess when you’ve missed the playoffs for 15 years in a row, what’s one more?  Thankfully, I have my original hometown Seahawks to keep me enjoying football.  My fantasy team did much better than expected, finishing 6-8 and placing 10th in our league.  At the beginning of the season, I was predicted to go 2-12, so I guess I overachieved.

Zach’s 16th birthday was on 11/23.  We celebrated a day early since everyone always comes over to our house on Sunday afternoon anyway.  He’s already driving as much as he can, whereas Amelia, who turned 18 on 12/3 doesn’t seem to care much about driving.  I’m trying to get both of them out driving anyway.  Amelia’s celebration was really stretched out.  We had cake and ice cream on 11/29, again because of the Sunday thing and the busyness of everyone at this time of year, but I think she only received her last gift on 12/11.

A bunch of us went and saw the last Hunger Games movie (Mockingjay part 2) on 11/24.  Overall, I thought the series was pretty well done.  Books are always better than movies, but it is fun to see how someone imagines and puts into a movie what you imagined in your own head.

We followed the American tradition of eating too much and falling asleep (yay for tryptophan) watching football on Thanksgiving.  We got a fresh turkey this year from a friend at church (Mary McCabe), and Kevin cooked the 28 pound bird to perfection.  Besides that we had Carissa’s rolls (yes, Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson were with us!), winter squash, cranberry jelly and relish, sweet potatoes, broccoli casserole, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pumpkin, pecan, apple, and blueberry pies.  I think just about everyone pitched in on the cooking, and it was all amazing.  Cramming into our house were Carissa, Matt, Hannah, Kevin, Alma, Ella, Cody, Hazel, Cai, Cai’s college roommate Roosevelt, Abigail, Seth, Amelia, Zach, Jemmie, Levi, and Krista and I.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:  no one parties like we do.

Our Thanksgiving feast

Once they returned home after Thanksgiving, Carissa and Matt were able to move into their new house

On 12/4, my work team had a holiday luncheon paid for by the company.  We had a buffet lunch at a restaurant that was really good and did a gift exchange.  We did the gift game where everyone is assigned a number and unwraps or steals a gift on their turn.  I gave a Buffalo Bills t-shirt that was pretty popular (it got stolen from the original opener), and ended up with a nice mini-flashlight.

Hannah’s family and Ella’s family and my family all went and got our Christmas trees on 12/5.  That’s earlier than usual for us, but they wanted to go then, so we cooperated.  Then we all rushed home and had a get-your-tree-up race.  I think we lost, but our tree looks good anyway.  We sacrificed speed for quality.

Our tree is lit...

...and fully decorated

Hannah and Alma admiring their tree

I’ve been working very little lately.  Yes, that is different than usual.  I have to use or lose my vacation days by the end of the year, so I only worked 4 days last week and two this week.  Next week I work Monday through Wednesday, and then I’m off until January.  It’s a rough life.  It has helped us get ready for Christmas since it has enabled Krista and me to do some shopping dates.  I think we’re pretty close to being done.

Our Christmas card is waiting until I can get pictures from Carissa’s wedding.  Our photographer is trying to finish her college semester, so the pictures aren’t to us yet.  It will probably end up being a New Year’s card, but that’s happened to us before.  Don’t worry.  Once you get it, it will have been worth the wait.

Sad news this month for us is the passing of my aunt, Ruth Kerns.  She was my Mom’s sister and probably the closest to a second Mom I had.  We will miss her for her family history tracking and knowledge, her quick smile, and her loving care.  Someday we will all have a glorious reunion in heaven!

The last time we saw Aunt Ruth.  She and Uncle Cordon were at Roberts Wesleyan in 2011 for the Free Methodist Annual Conference

This past Saturday and Sunday nights, our church had a combined kids’ musical and adult cantata.  I am still directing the adult choir, so it’s been a lot of work lately, but it went really well, and I trust that the gospel message was clearly proclaimed through both of those programs.  I hope you know that truth and have claimed it personally.  God created us all and lovingly and graciously gave us rules to live by so our joy in life could be most perfect.  But we rebelled against Him and went our own way, thinking we knew better.  All we got in our folly was sin and death.  Thankfully, God didn’t leave us in our sin and death as we deserved.  In His great love for us, Jesus willingly came to earth, the infinite God of the universe, in the form of a helpless baby.  He took our death and gave us His life.  He took our sin and gave us His righteousness.  “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” 2 Corinthians 9:15.

This Kids' Christmas program

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Hanukkah, or whatever other holiday you are celebrating.  I’ll tell you about our Christmas in January!

OK, I was pretty proud of this Hearts game.  I am "Player" and the other three were players the computer managed.

Of course, there has to be a cute granddaughters picture