A Merry Christmas 2008 to my readers!

As has become tradition, I’m not going to post on Christmas Day. Instead I wanted to wrap up this holiday today with a few observations.

First of all, I’m spending my Christmas with part of my family once again, this time in sunny Florida. Trust me, living in the Midwest for 40 years I don’t need to have a white Christmas. It’s a bittersweet holiday for me this year because a family member is not well and I was told what time he has left is in God’s hands. So I pray this is not the last Christmas he sees.

All this makes me grab on to my friends much more closely. Moving here and literally knowing nobody aside from those who interviewed me for my job and renting my apartment, I had to establish roots and slowly I have. And while I’ve gotten Christmas cards from people down here before, generally they were business associates, and in one respect the same applies here. But one pair of cards I received from some special folks really made my day, here was one of them – the other was a picture of that happy couple who front the band.

I like this better than my White House card because I know it came from the heart.

I hope their holidays rock too. But the point is more about finding friends that become like family in the strangest of places.

In our hustle and bustle of society today, we often lose track of things that are important to us. Certainly I’m blessed with the means to see my family, who I admittedly chose to leave behind when I decided to come here. And while sometimes you become close to those you work with, more often than not you’ll see them eight or nine hours a day for a couple years before they move on. My profession is somewhat notorious for that. With our increasingly mobile way of life, we tend to shelter ourselves behind fences and locked doors, which saddens me to some extent. We wistfully wish for a Currier and Ives Christmas but when we have the opportunity to recreate one we don’t always follow through because there’s that one more gift to buy for Aunt Suzy or Uncle Bob. Maybe they’d appreciate a dinner invitation or a helping hand with theirs instead.

And let’s all hope 2009 is a better year than the one that has passed; whatever your political persuasion I think we can all agree we as a world could use some improvement. Tomorrow is supposed to be a day for Peace on Earth, so I’m contributing.

Last year, I placed a song in my Christmas post that I enjoyed hearing, this year I secured a new version! Naturally, this is my friends from Semiblind with their portrayal of ‘O Holy Night’.

With that, I hope you received everything you wanted for Christmas but more importantly gave everything you could.

Regular posting resumes on Friday.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

One thought on “A Merry Christmas 2008 to my readers!”

  1. Michael,

    I was just catching up with your blog and what you have posted here rings very true. 2008 has not been a great year for me as you know very well. I know what you are going through with a ill family member and not being employed at the moment. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family during this sad time. I had you had a good Christmas despite of your sad news. Hopefully 2009 will be better for the both of us and for all Americans whether you are a liberal, conservative, Democrat or Republican etc.

    God Bless,

    M

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