YIPEE
Christmas in the City

We drove home tonight under the cover of silvered clouds backlit by the glowing orb of the night’s moon. Full and bright and utterly strange. We drove home from Ohio where my family lives among the ghosts of strange names like Tuscarawas, Cuyahoga, and the people like General Wayne and Holmes who tried to kill them and ended up dying themselves like everyone else. When I told the owner of the Russian Souvenir store here in town that my people in Ohio are German he wanted to know if they were colonists – I told him yes they were. They were settlers on the great Northwestern frontier. He wanted to know if they live in villages like peasants in Southern Ukraine and I said that was right. He seemed to like that, particularly when I told him my grandparents had been Amish.

I like my family too. When I visit my Filipino friends over the holidays I am always impressed by the obsessive way they make every conceivable holiday food in their tradition. My mom does that too. There are always twenty different things on the table when we spend Christmas with my family. It’s great. We always gain weight.

Since Jenn and I are getting ready to go to China in a couple of days this week is crazier than usual. So no big elaborate Christmas in New York. We’re mostly trying to get enough sleep and make sure the laundry gets washed. Maybe we can celebrate another year of Jesus with the Chinese.