Whine in my Christmas wine.
Okay, scratch the whinin' I'm not a whino.
You get where I'm coming from, right? It's the first Christmas after...
Without...her.
Without...my love.
Without...a really good punch-line.
However, a funny thing happened as I was plannin' how I could maximize my mopiness (that's mopyness, not mop...you know what I mean).
I realized this would be the last thing she would want for me to do.
Well, maybe not the last thing. There are worse things than monopolizing mopyness, afterall. Let's not blow this thing out of proportion.
Where was I? Oh yeah, a funny thing happened. No wait, after that. I realized sure as she was sayin' it to me herself that Patti would not want me mopynizin' on Christmas.
Patti loved Christmas. It was her favorite Holiday of the year. Not because of gifts, at least not material ones, but because of the real meaning of Christmas:
Hark The Herald Angels Sing, Glory To The Newborn King! The Christ the King!
Made sense, since Jesus is the greatest gift of all.
Patti loved Christmas songs as well. And all the good Christmas shows. Decorating the house and making everything brighter and more beautiful.
Cooking and spending time together. Talking to the kids when they couldn't be here. Driving around at night to see the Christmas lights some folks put up.
When we would say grace at Christmas dinner she would thank our Lord for our children, for all His blessings upon us, and even for me.
She made me feel special, but in a good way.
On our first Christmas together, which was the second year we were married because I was on a WestPac deployment during what would've been our first Christmas, I recall the look of bewilderment on Patti's face when she opened up a gift I had gotten her.
It was dishwashing gloves.
Guys, never give cleaning supplies as gifts to your wife. They don't count. Seriously.
But rather than get angry about my snafuey faux pas Patti laughed about it, and would continue to laugh about it whenever she remembered it.
Of course, funny as it was I never repeated that snafuey faux pas. Well, not that particular one anyways.
One of Patti's favorite parts of Christmas was seeing the joy on our daughters faces when they opened their gifts, and spending time with them, doing stuff with them, and me.
During our first few years of marriage, when money was more scarce than Bigfoot in the Mojave desert, Patti's joy around Christmas was no less, because it was never about material things, it was about God and family.
Patti brought more joy to Christmas, no doubt about it.
And she still does.
Merry Christmas Patti and thank you!
And Merry Christmas to you guys! I hope you don't consider me presumptious in thinking that you all are family to me.
9 comments:
lol - you really got her dishwashing gloves?
Merry Christmas, Ben. *hugs*
Aye, wasn't very bright in those days, lol.
Thanks Julie! Merry Christmas!
You are definitely family.
I remember some of those financially embarrassed Christmases. Funny thing is that I don't remember them with any regrets. We had a lot of fun.
Sounds like you had a good day. I enjoy those pictures.
Thanks Mushroom!
I had a very good Christmas. Got to talk with both daughters and granddaughter, they liked their gifts, and spent most the day smiling or laughing when I reminisced.
I could definitely feel Patti smiling along with me. :)
Yes, those po' Christmases were among the best ones.
Never were we bitter about someone else having more gifts than we had, because we were and are blessed beyond measure.
BTW, my youngest daughter will be here in early Feb. for a martial arts seminar.
We have a week to be together. She can teach me some of the stuff she has learned.
We als plan to go to the range where she eill, no doubt out shoot me. :)
That is something to look forward to. She's sounds pretty cool.
That she is, Mush.
She's currently studying Systema, an ancient Russian martial arts system that incorporates Orthodox principles.
I read up on it here:
http://www.systemacalifornia.com/principles.html
Sounds good to me. :)
Hi Ben, I missed this post on my sidebar. Been in an out this last week. Sorry about that. Happy belated Christmas! I liked the pics as well.
Yeah, y'all are family to me as well.
Orthodox-based martial arts? Sounds like my kind of thing.
Like, Kung-Fu for Jesus. (Probably a good thing I didn't hear of this thirty years ago. The world is a strange and wonderful place.)
Hi John,
Thanks! I can sure see the appeal of Orthodox based martial arts. I liked what I read.
It seems to me that one would be more proficient of a martial artist by incorporating spiritual martial arts.
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