Sing To Me Hope

As she’s thrown on the sand…

So, it’s pretty sad that Christmas is all over with, but at least there’s still New Year’s to look forward to.

Hmm, so what all did I do? In the afternoon on the 23rd I went over to Kim’s place to do the gift exchange, and it was sweet. Jen got me a banana plushie with bruises on it… It’s kind of an inside joke I guess. She has this stuffed mushroom named Ming (he’s a Shiitake mushroom) and she keeps him in her car. Well, one day she was picking me up and he was on the passenger seat so I tossed him into the back… but according to Jen I brutally hurled him back there and now he’s in intensive care and ‘won’t talk to me’. So because of that, she thinks I like to beat up produce and so she got me a bruised banana plushie. I love him though and named him McGregor.

Then I went to the Christmas Eve service the next day, which was nice. I always like holding the candles and things, and I miss seeing the church so full. Hopefully when our new pastor comes, more people will start coming. And, I guess it’s just Saturday that’s seeing the low attendance? Apparently Sunday is still pretty good. Anyways, after the service we got Vietnamese food and then went home to play Settlers. I won one game and my brother won the other. Go kids!

We drove to Lethbridge on Christmas and spent a few hours at my grandparents place. I always like talking to them and they always amaze me. Like my grandma… man, she is so great. She was telling us about how she had kind of been having some differences with her neighbour early in the year, and then they weren’t talking much. She made up her mind that she wouldn’t let the bad blood seep into the New Year, so she wrote her a Christmas card. But before she thinks she received it, some of my grandpa’s medication was mis-delivered to their house. She said, ‘sometimes I really think that it’s the Holy Spirit moving when ‘mistakes’ like that happen. I could see somehow that the animosity had lifted like a fog when she brought it over. In any case, there are good feelings between us now,’ and she showed us the tin of baked goods they got from her. It’s crazy. She organizes things and volunteers… I hope I’m such a contributing member of society as she is, at any age. It’s so good for me to have such an uncommonly selfless person in my life. It helps me regain perspective.

And then there’s my grandpa, holy crap. He’s 81 and he could out-run a bear. I spent hours watching old videos of when my mom was a toddler and he walked on his treadmill the whole time. I really need to get out there more…

We went to my cousins’ house then for dinner, where we played Guitar Hero and Pictionary. We played “kids” against adults (kids in quotations because four of us are over 18 now) and won. So then they thought they’d win for sure when they pulled out Trivial Pursuit… but we won that one too. Hah! And actually, Pictionary was a pretty good game to play, looking back on it. The youngest, Adam (grade 6), did really well at it and Pang (their exchange student from Thailand) did well too once she translated the word!

I was feeling kind of sick the next day but I went Boxing Day shopping with Mike and my dad… but I didn’t get anything. In the evening I watched my beloved Narnia, hurray! That was basically the end of Christmas I guess, but it was a good one.

So maybe it’s time to start thinking up some New Year’s Resolutions… hmm… I never make them work, anyways. Usually I just forget about them. Meh!