Home for the Holidays

You may not know that we are spending Christmas in Vancouver with my family. Well, we are.

We arrived in Vancouver Wednesday evening after a fairly smooth direct flight to Seattle and a much longer than usual car ride up to the border (the drive usually takes under 2.5 hours but with traffic and a stop for dinner we stretched it to four). Toby and Alicia were commendable travelers. Of the four of us, Michelle was actually the most impatient, and I the grumpiest.

Now on the morn of our second full day here, I sit on the couch with my sister's wi-fi connected laptop as Toby takes in a rerun of Sesame Street and Alicia gnaws on the residents of a Fisher Price play village. It must be mentioned that she learned to crawl yesterday, more or less. Up on her knees and everything. Must be the Canadian air.

Anyway, the three of us are still kind of on Minnesota time, which would be 9:30, so I don't feel all that silly at having been up for two hours already. Michelle is still dozing happily, of course.

I don't have any deep reflections on the meaning of Christmas or anything, although Michelle wrote a very thoughtful Christmas letter which many of you can expect to receive reasonably soon. What I have been reminded of in our short time here so far is how cool my family is. So allow me to brag.

Brad and Stacy got back from Uganda one week ago, and are still reacclimating to North American ways. They have amazing stories and pictures, so it's a good thing they have their own blog or else I'd have to share them with you myself.

Derek is a youth pastor and a talented musician. I didn't know he had a myspace page until yesterday, so I'll be adding the link. Have a listen; he sounds great. And he even has a girlfriend; her name is Tegan and all I know about her is that she's quiet, and apparently somewhat accident-prone.

Brianna doesn't have a webpage that I know of, but makes up for it by being just as cool as her three brothers, and much better looking. She plays piano beautifully and teaches others to do likewise, and also works in a hospital. And she even has a boyfriend; his name is Caleb and all I know about him is that he's tall, intelligent and funny, and will probably wipe me out in our game of Lord of the Rings Risk if I don't move some serious firepower up into northern Arnor.

My Dad is still a compassionate and hard-working surgeon, and my mom is still a good surgical assistant, great cook, and super Nana. But what's really cool is how much fun it is to all be back together for something as familiar and familial as Christmas. It's funny how we made our own traditions without even trying. Not things like opening one present on Christmas Eve or making fudge; it's just the little details that you didn't know were so significant. Sure, things are a bit different now...it's my brother singing the Christmas carol on the stereo and it's my kid begging for another piece of candy...but the same hand-carved wooden nativity set is on the table in the entryway, the same goodie tray is on the island counter in the kitchen (maybe even some of the same goodies), and we'll still play games and do puzzles and laugh a lot (my brothers are both funnier than I am, if you can believe it), and we'll never quite say how much this all means to us and how lucky we feel to be part of a family full of such wonderful people, but we'll all know it anyway.

Merry Christmas.