And so this is Christmas

It's not like Christmas has ever lost meaning for me over the years. In fact, as I have grown old(er) I've come to appreciate family, friends and faith more and presents much less. This year I also learned to appreciate sleep.

However, nothing has renewed my over all excitement for Christmas than having children. This year Elliot really knew what was going on, both on the gift front and the nativity story. We spent each day going through a part of the story, using Family Life's "What God Wants for Christmas" program. And we read the Bible story to him a few times. He knows the characters and the general story line, which is important to us.

What was fun for me was the night before Christmas, when all through the house, the kids were all sleeping, sugar plums dancing through their heads. Stuff like that. And there I was, stuffing stockings, leaving crumbs on Santa's cookie plate, writing a letter to Elliot from Santa and threading the netting onto Elliot's new hockey net.

When I was a wee lad, not much taller than your average grizzly bear cub, my grandpa Bradbrooke bought my brother and I a table top hockey game with a stand and a score clock. It was cool. But mom and dad had set it up for us downstairs in the rec room and to find it, we had to follow a string leading us there from the living room where all the gift opening was happening. That was a very memorable morning for me. I tried to do the same for Elliot with the hockey net, setting it up in our dining room. It worked alright but Elliot kept following the ribbon the wrong direction and then running back and forth between the kitchen and the living room. He seemed to think that the ribbon was the gift and he was enjoying it a great deal. Still, he seemed happy with the hockey net as well, though he would have rathered I kept it in the dining room instead of moving it into the garage.