Here in Kansas City, in the north part of the city where I live, Snow Miser finally visited us early this Christmas Eve morning and left us with about an inch or so of fresh snow, our first snowfall of the year. It was a welcome site, making for a beautiful Winter's day, and, with temps not expected to top 30 degrees, guaranteeing us a White Christmas for the first time in several years.
So it's with the oft desired wintry backdrop that we enter into a Christmas Eve and Christmas Day of change this year.
We gained a daughter this past Summer, as my son married his long-time sweetheart, on, literally, the hottest day of the year. The thermometer reached 99 degrees on that July day, but the heat did not damper the celebration. So we welcome Kristina to her first Christmas as an official, recognized by church and state, part of our family.
We have a bittersweet change this Christmas Eve. For the past eleven years my mom has lived in Kansas City, and the past several Christmas Eves have been spent with her. Earlier this year she moved to Tennessee to live with my sister and her husband. She moved, at age 97, and she recently celebrated her 98th birthday. She is doing wonderfully, eating well, being more active than in recent years, and enjoying the Tennessee countryside. While we will miss her this evening, we are very glad that she is happy and healthy as she prepares for her 99th Christmas day tomorrow.
And we have had sad change this year as well. We lost my dear father-in-law early this year, and while the circumstances were, in some ways, as good as can be possible, it was still a time of great sadness and loss. Fortunately for our family as we celebrate Christmas, we have many years of great, happy memories that will counter the inevitable sense of missing that everyone will feel. His wife, four children, their spouses, and twelve grandchildren will celebrate and remember over these next two days.
As I write this, I'm about an hour and a half away from starting the festivities. Four o'clock mass, followed by, instead of dinner with my Mom, a lighthearted dinner with my lovely wife and children at my son's apartment, where we will, in the apartment complex's "theatre", watch "A Christmas Story" for the hundredth time, east soup, sandwiches, and Chex Mix, have a few holiday beverages, and enjoy the Eve. Oh, and the children will open their very special presents from their Tennessee-resident Grandma, which will surprise them greatly, I predict. And then back home for the night, to see if Santa will still visit the children who are here with us at home this holiday. Even though they are 22, 19, and 16, I suspect he will.
Merry Christmas, Der Bingle ... thank you again for wonderful shares of the music of the season making the season "Merry and Bright." This is a treasured part of the season. My bride and I here on the north side of Cincinnati know of the loss you express (we're 59ish), we lost both of our fathers this year. For my Mom midnight Mass was her first without Dad. May your day be happy, hearty, family and holy. Der Zinzinnati Deutcher Mann.
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