Christmas was a bounteous time...

Sunday Christmases are not my favorite...too many important things in a day.
I received the most wonderful Christmas present: I got to preach for the Sunday morning
service. Now, since the celebration of Jesus' birth is not apostolically taught in the New Testament, the churches of Christ as a rule do not celebrate it as a church holy day. Individual members and families have their own traditions, and are free to do as they will. Nonetheless, I preached the most Christmassy sermon ever at our congregation. I may put it up as an audio blog here.
The upshot: keep Christ, not just Christmas, the whole year through. It was well received, and apparently blessed some.

Before church, we got up, and began the festivities with coffee and stockings.
This has evolved over the years. The Dread Dormomoo and I invariably wound up "playing Santa" until the wee hours of Christmas morn, and would thus be reindeer-tired after an all-too-short winter's nap. The kids, when younger, were allowed to uncrate their stockings when they awoke. This allowed us to at least laze in the sack awhile longer, whilst we listened to their squeals and giggles of discovery. Stockings have always been VERY important to our celebrations. We would search for super-cool and groovy goodies for them, not just dimestore junk to fill the things. And there was NO orange in the toe!

My non-stocking list of acquisitions:

Polar Lights Klingon D7 Battlecruiser kit
Can of Macadamia nuts
CD: The Present by The Moody Blues
CD: Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds, SA version
DVD set: Rumpole of the Bailey starring Leo McKern
Book: Interior Desecrations by James Lileks.
A great 100% cotton blue sweater (yes, I'm REALLY happy about this.)
A pre-embargo Cuban cigar in a glass tube!!!

What a huge blessing!
I can hardly wait to see what the New Year has to offer...