Mostly Gooder

"Christmas has a way of making the good seem gooder and the bad seem badder." Pastor Rick Boyce, GTA, December 12, 2004.

Quite true, quite true.

So, how did everyone enjoy Christmas? Are you exhausted from shopping or putting in those extra holiday shifts at work? Did you get a chance to visit all of your family and to join friends in all of the expected holiday parties?

I was exhausted myself, to the point of being sick all week. I was coming off of those 6 performances for GTA's Christmas presentations. It went very well and God ministered through me in worship, which I find to be a fairly humbling experience for me these days. I'm just glad that I only had a cold before the performances started and then again once they were done, allowing me to remain healthy during those two weeks. The other guy in the bass section of the choir with me had laryngitis for two of the performances so I'm glad that I was able to hold up all right.

I've had a nice Christmas. The best part for me was that my parents were home this year on Christmas day. Last year they were flying home from Korea for Boxing Day and they got stuck in San Fransisco because of a flight layover. I was looking at my volunteer work log from last year and apparently I spent Christmas day in 2003 at work, doing some volunteer coding for the JAG Room Booking Software that I've been developing lo these many years. Spending Christmas day with my family is much better.

(As an aside, I finally finished Version 12 of that software this past week, complete with logos and splash screens. I've been working on it since 1999 for LGT and I think that it's just about ready for other churches to start using it. I figure that it's required two to three hundred hours of programming so far.)

So it was nice to have my parents home for good this year. We had the traditional Christmas breakfast with pemeal bacon and eggnog. We read the Christmas story from the Bible and opened our presents, and then later had a nice turkey dinner.

As far as the presents go, this family certainly appreciates DVDs. I bought CSI Season 4 for my parents, Friends Season 7 for my sister and the Return of the King Extended Edition for my brother. My sister bought my brother the new Star Wars DVD Collection (Episodes IV, V and VI) and bought me the series DVD of the animated Dilbert TV show. And finally, my grandparents (the english ones in Florida) bought me the series DVD of the original 1967 Spider-Man cartoon. Yep, DVDs to all and to all a good night!

I pray that your Christmas holidays are mostly gooder and that God shines brightly in your life.