 Christmas Eve Dinner |
Merry Christmas to all! We had a great Christmas. We spent it at my sister’s house in Seal Beach. We went down there Christmas Eve and had our traditional fondue dinner. This is not cheese or chocolate fondue that many are familiar with, but it is olive oil with butter and then you cook chunks of steak in it. My mom makes a special sauce that you can dip it in or you can dip in all sorts of other condiments on your plate. It was great! In addition to my sister’s family, and my Mom, some friends of my sister, Ed and Jude, attended as well. Ed was very interesting. He works for Toyota in the Prius division. I had lots of questions for him on the Prius and Toyota’s plans for hybrid/electric cars.
 The Duet |
After dinner, we went to Grace Community Church in Seal Beach for the Christmas eve service. This is my sister’s church. It was fun. My mom really likes the male duet of “Oh Holy Night” with the pastor and worship leader. They are very good.
That evening Donna and I went home and we each opened one present. This was one of her traditions as a kid, you can open ONE present on Christmas eve, so we made it one of our own. The next morning we opened our stockings (a tradition we both held) and the presents we had received from Donna’s family and other friends before we headed back over to my sister’s house for Christmas day.
 Tiger Lily |
 Mom, Tiger Lily and the little boys |
When we arrived, we met the new member of the family, Tiger Lily! Kelley gave her to my mom for Christmas. Mom was so happy! She had been wanting a cat for a long while now.
 Kirk & Donna |
 Kelley & Barry |
 The Kids |
 Kirk and his new iPod |
After breakfast, (Clean your plates before presents!) we opened all the presents. Boy were there a lot! Kelley got some pillows for Meg that came in a giant plastic bag that is used normally to wrap bikes. We used this for all the wrapping paper and boxes. It worked well. We had a great time watching each other open their stuff. My favorite present came from my wife. She got me an iPod! She even had it engraved by Apple! It says “Kirk, Sing joyfully to the Lord! Ps 95:1-2, Eph 5:19“. So now we are ripping our entire CD collection into iTunes and will be able to have it everywhere with the iPod. We may actually have more CD’s than this iPod can fit (40 gigs). If that is the case we will just have our most favorite 10,000 songs on it.
That afternoon my mom, Donna and I visited my father. He is in an Alzheimer’s facility in Laguna Woods. He is doing OK, but has an eye infection right now. We got him a coffee table book with lots of good pictures of cars. One of his favorite subjects. He seemed to like it. My mom wasn’t feeling well, so we took her back to her place and got her cat all situated. We had her call the hospital and describe the symptoms that she had and they insisted she come in. We brought her to the hospital and it turns out she has bronchitis and pleurisy. Please keep her and my father in your prayers. While she was having her tests, Donna and I went out to dinner since we couldn’t make it back to Kelley’s for dinner. We had a nice dinner together at Dave and Buster’s. Mom had been released by the time we returned to the hospital so we caught up with her at her home. We got her settled in and went on to our own home. All in all it was a good Christmas. May the love of Christ touch you all!