Well, Christmas has come and gone. Children everywhere have demoted last year’s toys and gifts in place of this year’s. Many parents have spent money they don’t have to buy gifts that their kids want but don’t really need. Most people avoided burning down their house with the tree that they bought from a guy trying to make a few extra bucks in order to afford gifts for his own family, or maybe just to pay off the gifts from last year so he can repeat the cycle again.

Ah, Christmas!

But in all seriousness, I had a very nice Christmas. My wife’s family came up from Arizona to celebrate with us. It has been a good visit. I have about a week and a half off from work, with the exception of our usual service times. It’s a funny thing; we always say we want to take a little vacation from work, but when we get one, we don’t really know what to do! If one is just hanging out around the house, trying to avoid spending money that one doesn’t have, one begins to realize how much they rely upon money to keep themselves adequately entertained!

One of our small indulgences was to see a movie yesterday. We packed the van that my wife’s family brought and headed out to the movies. Most of us saw “Seven Pounds”, but two of the kids saw “Bolt”. I must say, “Seven Pounds” was quite an emotionally gut-wrenching movie. Without giving it away, I’ll just say that it might challenge the way you think about self-sacrifice for the good of others.

If you have a Christmas story from this past Christmas, we’d love to hear it!

Blessings,
-Stewart