Christmas, kids and the animals

There are some benefits in letting people down. Hurting a few feelings too. I know, you're going to say..."does pastor darrin think that?" "He's supposed to make people happy, not disappoint them." Since the ministry is...you know... a feel good happy job to spread happy feelings to people. "He wouldn't do that." You're right... so I'll blame it on Lisa. We mustered up the courage and said to family and friends this year "forget about us coming over on Christmas", "we're spending it alone at home with the kids".

Actually i was as convinced as Lisa on this one. Maybe more. We decided that after 15 years or so of driving to one side of the family on the 24th, rushing back to celebrate a midnight Communion, wrapping gifts till 3:00 a.m. so Santa could leave his offering, followed by driving to the other side of the family on the 25th after getting dragged out of bed by frantic children at 7:00 a.m. to open gifts and sometimes yet another church service..... we would say, in effect, "to you know where with all!"

Actually, we didn't really say that... we're pastors after all. But we thought it. And not to all -just to everyone outside the immediate family. Which brings me to Christmas for kids and animals.

We loaded up the chainsaw and hooked the flat deck trailer to the truck. Threw a bale of straw on the deck to sit on and loaded three kids and three dogs onto the trailer to head across the fields to the river and the trees. For those of you super safety conscious parents our kids are old enough to ride on the trailer, and young enough to have made it dangerous enough to be fun and worry the parents. No kids fell off up front by the hitch or under the side wheels of the trailer. One dog did however! Houston "scrub" our beloved chocolate lab saw three hundred or so Canadian geese take off from the field and since in his little mind he can catch them, fell off the side of the trailer and sure enough just as I looked in the side mirror the trailer wheels (both of them) went right over him. Dumb shit. I pulled over quickly and the big mutt was on his feet and ran over the the straw stack to wonder what injustice had been done to him. We were worried and ran over to him to give him love and he sort of shrunk down like he does when we approach him after he's done something wrong, as he often does. He was fine and we laughed at him for thinking he must be in trouble since the trailer wheels probably did hurt.

Off to the river we went where we cut a bunch of dead-fall for firewood and loaded it onto the trailer. the kids thought it was great, they even did reasonably well when they tried the chainsaw. Again to you safety super-conscious parents just get over it... or your kids never will. Then we discovered a long smooth strip of thick ice at the edge of the Belly river with a convenient two foot hole 30 yards down. So we began sliding rocks to see who could get them into the hole and thus three hours of river curling was born -complete with evolving Parkin rules and unverifiable scores...of course in favor of the man of the house, man of the river, man of the trees! In between a few passionate arguments over whose turn it was, did that last shot actually count, hot chocolate cups and who gets which, and yelling at Houston, Murphy and little Chase to get off the thin ice at the middle of the river, we enjoyed the warm air, no actual wind, and the spiritually pregnant Christmas Eve day. Back to the truck and trailer and with windows all the way down we crept back to the yard trying not to loose firewood (or dogs....or kids) on the way.
















































We stopped to grain the horses, and gave them lots of extra since the kids insisted that Christmas was for them too. Taco and Belle didn't object as they were the object of much attention and much grain.
















back home we lit the fireplace, and sat down to an oven ready Christmas dinner complete with Diana Krall Christmas Songs, wine for all five, and dogs happily laying at the fire. We read the Christmas story from Luke, sat together and watched "It's a wonderful life", opened one stocking stuffer, then made beds on the floor in the living room for three kids, one fire, four dogs, and two cats. We laughed at Scrub for half an hour pulling his ears and stretching his lips and tucking him into Sierra's bed when she got up. It was a lot of fun. In bed by midnight happy, we saw the Eve slip away into a relaxing Christmas day enjoying gifts no better or worse than other years.

It was pretty Norman Rockwell and very unique for a family like ours with the busyness and driving. We loved it. The kids said it was the best Christmas ever. The animals were impressed too, which impressed the kids of course and made for some rare magic that Christmas is supposed to hold were it not for the self-imposed obligation to visit and the silly catholic guilt that makes missing church Christmas Eve, especially for pastors, unthinkable.

Oh well, after a glass of wine and a cigar to cap Christmas Eve we have some really good pictures. And memories that will go with the kids forever too. That itself is worth more than anything else. What we don't have is guilt or regret for the "supposed to do's" at Christmas. The families saw us on the 26th and 27th and that was just fine.

So, cheers to guilt-less Christian living, possibly hurting a few feelings, kids and animals, and Norman Rockwell.

darrin