Ringing In

I don't know that I've ever been much for New Years parties. I think in college I might have gone to a few, but mostly on New Years I can be found at home with just a few people as opposed to a giant party somewhere. It's not to say I don't like the giant parties, but somehow I just never really got on board with the whole New Years Celebration thing. It seems like kind of an arbitrary event to celebrate, but then, over-thinking these kinds of things isn't really the point. Anyway, this past Thursday evening my wife and I celebrated the onset of 2010 with her parents and a neighbor friend who lives down the block from us, and we just chatted about things in town, had some sparkling grape juice, and a few snacks to boot. It was a really good time, even though the whole thing was pretty low-key. So far 2010 is doing great, but it's a lot like 2009 except maybe a tad colder. Hopefully things warm up soon around here, but whatever the temp is, at least we're not in the 15-below weather of Minnesota. My hats off to y'all up north...

Speaking of celebrations, we spent Christmas down up in Lincoln, and even though we were just with family, it was pretty gigantic. :) We made it to the 3:30 Christmas Eve service, and it's a good thing we chose the earlier one as many churches around town cancelled services that evening and the next day. Later that night there was something like 16 people over at my parents' house for dinner, photos, presents, and prayers. Most were family members, but there were a few friends over just for fun. All in all, a great time and certainly my idea of how to celebrate a given occasion.

After spending the past few days with my wife's mom and stepdad, who came down for a visit just following our return from Lincoln, it's about time to get things around here back to normal. We started taking the Christmas Tree down last night, and tomorrow it's back to work as usual. In some ways it's kind of nice to be back to a routine, though, and as the days are now getting progressively longer, it's a good sign that something great (i.e. Spring) is coming soon...