If you are reading this on Wednesday the 28th of December, our son Nick is celebrating his 32nd birthday.  My, oh my, how the little ones grow up so quickly.  Where does the time go?  Today is also the 4th Day of Christmas.  On this day you will receive from your true love: 4 calling birds, 3 French hens, 2 turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.  Lucky you.  If you don't see this memo until the 5th, well, you will be blessed with 5 gold rings and the four other above mentioned gifts.  I have only ever worn one ring at a time.  The first was my high school ring.  I wore it on my right ring finger.  At some point I stopped wearing it and I did not wear another one until I was married.  My wedding band resides very comfortably on my left ring finger.  I have no desire to wear any other jewelry.  I will concede some believe a watch is jewelry, but I find it a necessity and so it falls into another category, altogether.  All this is to say, in a subtle way, Christmas is only beginning.  The season is twelve days in length, culmination on Epiphany.  The Magi visit the manger and The Light of the World shines on the gentiles.  Remember, it's the Magi responsible for all the gift giving at Christmas.  Blame them or honor them.  And if we strictly observed their example, we'd only give gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  That would sure cut down on the mania in Advent.  Merry Christmas all, and I pray your New Year is blessed, prosperous, and joyful.

A.D. 2016 finds Christmas falling on Sunday.  Only infrequently does this happen.  Christmas usually falls on one of the other six days and when it does, the Sunday before Christmas  becomes "Christmas Sunday."  Not this year.  Sometimes this complicates plans and schedules.  Work and school and travel all adjust to a Sunday Christmas.  Holiday "days off" need to be considered and, perhaps, renegotiated.  What doesn't seem to suffer is shopping.  A Sunday Christmas means Saturday, the 24th, becomes the last day of last resort for those last minute decisions and purchases.  The season of celebrating the birth of Jesus is one both of panic and mania for some and reflection and relief for others.  Families gather and eat and exchange gifts.  This year worship on Christmas is available to those so inclined.  Remember, not everyone has family or a family they can have near.  Not everyone can gather around a tree and a fireplace and a feast laden table.  As blessed as many of us are, remember those who are not so blessed.  Remember our homeless and the hungry and the sojourners.  Remember the prisoners and the displaced and those suffering the devastation of war.  Remember, too, the Child who comes from God to set right all that is askew in the world.  And pray.  Pray for all God's families and all God's servants and all God's beloved.  Be well and be blessed this Christmas season.

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..." Or so the opening lyric of the popular song asserts.  The look of Christmas apparently means candy canes and holly wreaths and snow.  And that is true only because we inhabit the 21st Century.  Our culture pretty well dictates our holiday rituals and customs.  But remember, Jesus was born in Bethlehem over twenty centuries ago.  What's more, Bethlehem is in a desert.  It averages only three days a year of snow.  Oh, if that were only true here in Indiana.  Alas, it is not.  We must drive and shovel and spread salt and put on snow tires, well, you know the rest.  I doubt Jesus ever threw a snow ball or made a snow man or licked a candy cane.  He did not celebrate his birthday as we have come to do.  Whether a person celebrates Christmas or not; whether it's part of one's standard year-end routine or not; whether Jew or Gentile or Greek or Roman there is one way the world takes notice in remembering Jesus' birthday.  It's A.D. 2016.  The world keeps track of days and weeks and months and years and centuries based on his birth.  Believe in Him or not; honor Him or not; ignore Him or not; Jesus is a part of our living.  He is ubiquitous.  He is unavoidable.  Even if by silently and subtly measuring time until even it surrenders to God's will and is swept up into eternity.  I wonder what that will look like?

I've been without my cell phone since last Tuesday afternoon.  When I sought to purchase a replacement (as I believed it to be dead beyond repair) I discovered it was still under warranty.  I immediately felt a couple hundred bucks richer.  However, to obtain a replacement, I needed to contact Samsung and not just my AT&T provider.  For what I considered to be an exorbitant mailing charge, I could have had my new phone the next day.  I opted for regular/standard delivery.  That delivery spanned the weekend, to my dismay.  Therefore, I was phoneless-in-Syracuse for the next six days.  I was out of touch, so to speak by text and voicemail and simple conversation.  What's worse, I didn't receive pictures of Audrey Isabelle.  At last the replacement came, I had it set up by an expert, and I'm back in touch.  However, I do not have all my contacts and I lost my pictures.  Such is life, at times; not fatal, but inconvenient enough to notice and not like it.   I think I'll go spend that "new phone savings" on lunch and something else for Julia.  After all, her birthday is the 17th.