The Christmas Story of 2012

Christmas season is a little bittersweet in my line of work.  It begins with a hurricane called Black Friday and ends with a tsunami on Christmas Eve.  The world of retail sales is not a friendly one in the holiday season.  But, in the midst of it all, I managed to have a beautiful Christmas.  I must say that I am a very blessed man.  I spent some time with the Remy Family, and they were gracious enough to feed me a tasty meal.  Emily always has a way of making every occasion memorable and special as well.  I believe that her and I formed some more wonderful memories this Christmas. 

It started with preparation.  My apartment is small, but so is our Christmas tree so it was a good pairing.  But with a few strands of Christmas lights and a little tree, we managed to make this tiny apartment a lovely little Christmas winter wonderland.

 

Our first celebration was on Christmas Eve.  After work I drove down to Richmond and we enjoyed some good snacks.  Then the Remy gift extravaganza began. Selfishly, I got Emily some hats. She looks beautiful in them but doesn't own any.  She suffers from a funny-hat-wearing fiance' problem so I figured it was time for her to become a hat-wearer herself.  Tell me that she doesn't look great in a hat!

 

I don't mean to get too focused on gifts.  We Christians all know that Jesus was the ultimate Christmas gift.  But Jesus doesn't look as good on me as the cool new coat that I got from Emily's parents.  Here are some of my favorites:

Not only did I get the new half-bend sand-blasted viking pipe that I wanted, but Emily sweetened the deal with a sweet little corn-cob pipe as a stocking stuffer as well. Emily got lots of neat sleepwear.

I can't say enough about the other gift offering from Emily.  She found me an old World War II typewriter at the flea market.  Apparently it was quite worn and grimy.  But she gave it a good clean-up, and even painted the casing.  It is an old Smith-Corona portable typewriter that was used by traveling war journalists. Hence, its' size is very convenient.  It types like a dream, every key and hammer working.  I'm not sure what direction it will inspire me, but it is honestly one of my favorite gifts I have ever received.

 We celebrated our Christmas morning free by taking Caspian out to the dog park, and I got to test drive my new pipe.

As Christmas 2012 winds down, I do want to thank my Heavenly Father for the amazing gift of a beautiful family. Although I did not get to see them this year, I trust that they also were blessed.  We all have so much in wealth of possessions, but mostly in love.   I know we all had to find our own way of making Christmas special this year, as we were all separated by circumstances.  But I trust that we will soon have Christmases together again.  Emily and I cannot wait to see all of you at the wedding in March. We love all of you! Merry Christmas and God bless!

And here is our favorite picture from Christmas.  See if you can figure out why. We didn't notice until after the shot was taken :) Let's just say that in Texas I might've made a prize for some hunter.