Different kinds of Christmas "services."

As I left here for the early church service yesterday, I heard sirens and shouts and saw oncoming flashing lights. Fortunately, the cries were from kids shouting "Santa!" and I knew what the rest of the fuss was about:



I don't remember this tradition from my childhood, but it's been a part of Christmas fabric around here for as long as we've lived here.  All I could think, given the tragic losses to their brethren yesterday, was that this was probably the toughest Santa run they've ever had to do.  Yet that IS what first responders do- they respond, even if it's only to the need of an innocent child who somehow needs to see Santa this year more than ever.

----

We had about four hours betweeen the early service and the music performance one to eat together and get our tree decorated.  These, we did- the food was glorious and the tree, bright and lighty-



- but midway through the meal, it was clear something was wrong.  Cameron, who'd come home with a cold, was having escalating problems with his ashtma. Quite possibly these were caused by his rooting around in all the ornament boxes that spend the other 51 weeks of the year in our moldy old cellar.  He'd forgotten his inhaler, and when I offered to drive back to their apartment to get it, Emily said it didn't work anyway.  So they set off to urgent care- at 6:30 on a Christmas Eve.

Even those hard working elves get that particular night off.  He tried steam, outside air, a couple of round-the-house meds, and briefly considered spending Christmas Eve in an emergency department, but ultimately we decided to just try the strongest over the counter med we could find, at the Last Rite Aid at the End of the Universe which was open, for nonprescription products, 24 hours even then. Even now.

And so, instead of attending a Stillnacht musical service, I provided a real one. I drove them to the drugstore, made sure it was working once he selected one, and settled snug in our beds with visions of bronchial sugarplums all adance.

I'm sure the music was lovely. Maybe there'll be a CD of it. They plan to do it again next year.  All in all, though, I don't think I missed a thing that really mattered. That's all here- and Christmas has come.

Love and happiest of Christmases to each and every one of you.

♫Sunny sky, pretty day....♫

The kids have gone off to visit both of Cameron's parents' homes for the afternoon, leaving us (and their slightly insane just-fixed cat) to chillax in the early winter sunshine. A bigass storm is promised for tomorrow, so this comes as a break on top of a break.

I'd forgotten to bring back some videos to the library, including a four-disk set of the Brideshead Revisited series that would have grown fines faster than my IRA if I'd waited until tomorrow, so I took a quick drive over to drop them off. There's a certain, special kind of peace that comes when the hustle and bustle of the world is reduced to a handful of gas stations, Chinese restaurants, and, especially, homes.  This is an older neighborhood, and, thus, the place that the kids and grandkids come home to on Christmas afternoon after having their mornings someplace else.

It won't be long before that's us they're coming home to in the afternoon. To a large extent, we already are.

----

Emily's gift to me was this new collection:



It's pretty close to a scrapbook (yes, Donna)- an amalgamation of handwritten notes that Jim kept in a journal from the 50s into the second-to-last year of his life, mixed in with sketches, advertising materials, and random musings of a man this world still needs so much of even in his absence.

Muppets have always been part of our family. When a massive collection of Hensonia came out when Emily was very little-



- Eleanor and I pulled a Gift of the Magi-ish move and each tried to get it for the other for that year's Christmas. Muppet Christmas Carol has become a big part of our seasonal listening, if not watching.  It's been a mixed year in Henson's remaining world- the gang returning to the big screen, but learning of another of the old-school Muppeteers passing away, and then Elmo going away for pedophilia, tempered a little of that joy later in the year.  I'm thankful for the older-than-me memories contained in this new collection, and, fully mindful of all the events, local and regional, good and bad, of this year's Yuletide, I remember the words that even Scrooge himself came to sing at the conclusion of the uniquely Henson version of Dickens:

It's true wherever you find love
It feels like Christmas.