This year, we were lucky enough to be invited to our babysitter’s aunt’s house for Christmas Eve. It was a house packed full of really excellent people, good food and lots of love. We really lucked out meeting these folks and Kelly (our babysitter) has been a godsend to us. Being church-going folk, after dinner they were planning to go to the Christmas Eve service at their church, The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Our Saviour, and we decided to go with them — I was certainly curious about it.
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not exactly the most religious person, but I tend to think that I can have an open mind when I’m interested in something. I have to admit, I quite enjoyed the service, even though I was busy trying to walk around and keep Suzie from yapping and crying throughout it. It was a good blend of traditional ministry, some good humor from the pastor and an excellent anecdote about an imperfect checkerboard, and singing some good songs. Sam and I are going to try and start attending regularly, so that Charlie and Suzie get a fair exposure to as many different types of religious education — it’s important they learn how to make good choices, not have us try to make choices for them.
I started thinking about the message in the pastor’s sermon, about Christmas being not about gifts but about a gift, the gift of love. I really found this an extremely accurate and powerful message. I immediately thought of one person who very recently reminded me about this … this true spirit of Christmas. Ian K., that person was you.
Our time in this world is finite, so it makes every moment special and precious. Ian, you gave us your time and love when we really needed it and that’s what made this Christmas even more special for us. Thank you.
Programmer, husband, father, singer, guitarist, tinkerer, reverse engineer, strange, and living in New Jersey. 
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