Christmas at the Cox's

I wish I had a picture or video of this but my little nephew during Christmas at our house. We have this little Santa that dances and sings "Santa Claus is coming to town." Lucas has played it enough to learn the song a bit, even though it sounds like "Hanta Claus"...hehe. So, he turns the Santa on and starts dancing with it...then runs halfway across the room and does this (modified) ninja kick. Then dances a bit, then runs across the room and does another kick. Oh, it was fantastic.

Christmas Eve. Lucas kept saying, "What is it?" while helping every one of us open our presents. He asked before every present was opened. It was great.

Christmas Day, Lucas got these little playhouses from Santa and he was crawling through them. Then he asked his 6'4 daddy to crawl through them. That was good stuff. Then he asked me to crawl through them, which I did. Then I had to stay in for awhile. When I went to get out, Lucas said, "Say Mie Mie, I love you in here." How do you say no to that? So, I stay in the too small little tent for awhile longer.

Oh I like Christmas. haha.

Late edit: This is sad and there's a lesson to be learned in it. So we took Lucas to see Santa. He was so excited and we finally got there and we was on Santa's lap and absolutely wouldn't smile!!! As much as we tried, we got nothing. Thus we were left with an odd face to go along with Santa's big ole happy face. We bought a picture and must have mentioned that it wasn't very good. Later Lucas goes up to Poppa (my dad) with one copy of the picture and says, "Poppa, the picture isn't very good." So sad!!!

Another add-on: Lucas was wrapping this for his Poppa all by himself...

What I've Learned - 2009

It's been a year.....2009 will shortly pass into 2010. Amazing. I'm beginning to realize that the time passes whether you recognize it or not. I mean you can pass through your days totally focused on what's immediately in front of you, working to get everything done, and time will pass...seemingly too fast to get all that stuff done. And yet, with getting things done the priority, you miss a lot of the good moments---the conversations with friends, the joy of moments, the adventure. I miss these things b/c I have failed to plan well and I fall victim to the urgent....instead of realizing that all things get done in their own time. People should win out over getting things done. After all, this life is a gift, borrowed time. Every second allowed by God himself. I think that's what I've learned this year. Especially lately. I went home for Christmas and immediately went to a funeral for my great aunt Virginia. Meanwhile, my brother was at a funeral for a good friend of his, a kid who lost his life at 24. There was a memorial service on Monday for Anthony Vietti, a 24-year-old kid who loved to climb mountains, and died doing so. So many lives, some lived out to an old age and some barely into adulthood.

All that just really slowed me down. As they were lowering my great aunt into the ground, it was amazingly clear to me right then that we'll all end up there. A box in the ground. And we get frustrated if we can't find the remote or if we get stopped at red light. It was at that moment that it was all brought into perspective. Or maybe, more accurately, it was that moment that I embraced the lesson. I don't know what how this new depth of understanding will play out over the next year but I know it will be positive.

To go along with that, something else I have grown to understand more deeply this year: each event or interaction or even passing glance all builds to something bigger. One of my Young Life girls tells me that she got started to where she's at now b/c she saw something bigger, deeper, happier in my life. And that built to her amazing walk with Jesus now. People watch your life. They judge your interactions, your reaction and your discussions. They want to know if this Jesus guy is really something worth taking a 2nd glance at. Too often, they judge that it's not. While part of that is where they're at, part of it is where we're at. Just a thought.