Wonderful time

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Last Thursday we went caroling at the local nursing home. I guess in my idea of a perfect world, the elderly aren't like discontinued figurines, placed somewhere then forgotten. It broke my heart when the home administrator, her voice choking with tears, thanked our group again and again for coming. She told us the residents we would see were the ones who rarely received visitors, especially during the holidays. Leading us down a narrow hallway, she brought us into a large dining room, filled with 50-60 residents, all displaying different stages of depression; some anxiously scanning the faces in our crowd, obviously hoping to see a long-absent loved one. Since I was pushing Robert in the stroller, we were moved to the front of the group. I wasn't too happy with that. I envisioned Robert escaping from his stroller and trying to go for a ride in someone's wheelchair, myself and a stream of people chasing him.


Our group hadn't sang together since last Christmas, but on that night, we were truly blessed, for our voices blended and complimented each other as we smiled and sang to that roomful of people. At the end of the first song, we were surprised by the enthusiastic applause. Robert, always wanting to be the center of attention, stood up in his stroller, clapped, and said, 'Thank you; thank you very much." The residents loved it, and clapped harder. They were so happy to have visitors. Allergies had me down all day, now I was ashamed that I considered not going there with my children.


We left there with a feeling of happiness, a result of the true meaning of Christmas


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We had a quiet, but wonderful, Christmas. Christmas Day the boys played with their Kawasaki keyboard, and with the Playstation 2 and games Santa left. There's one game that they have a hard time prying me away from--it's called Dance Dance Revolution 2. It has a workout mode I'm in love with. I couldn't help but notice though, there a "clumsy" warning about falling and being too close to the television. Hmm. . .wonder if the designers created that warning with me in mind?

How was your Christmas?