My sixteen-year-old son’s taking the initiative to drive his mother and sister, in his second-hand pickup truck, to pick out the Christmas tree and bring it home while I was stuck at work. They grow up so soon, and it’s such a joy to see them doing so;
Not seeing a lot of Christmas commercials on TV, because we just don’t watch all that much any more;
Hearing store clerks, and colleagues at work, saying Merry Christmas, instead of just Happy Holidays;
Lighting the candles of the Advent wreath at dinner;
Christmas-tree ornaments we’ve acquired in different places we’ve traveled;
The Christmas, excuse me, Advent, get-together of our New Covenant Group;
On Christmas Eve morning, listening to the live broadcast (on public radio) of a Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College at the University of Cambridge, with cultured English voices reading what sounded like the King James Version of the lessons;
A white-ish Christmas, at least for a few hours — in Houston, of all places;
Christmas Eve dinner with some of our closest friends;
Dinner at home on Christmas Day with extended family, plus a few;
After the guests have left and the kids have gone off to the movies, sitting by the fire and listening to a Christmas CD of the Canterbury Cathedral choir, of which we have fond memories;
The fact that after 2,000 years, we still commemorate the most consequential birth in human history.
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