Wrapping It Up

This past Christmas, which wrapped up only last week, was an unusual Christmas for me. We were headed for the hills of West Virginia to spend time with my mother and my kin. We were going to spend Christmas as a family. We were going to spend Christmas together. And we were going to experience some firsts.

This was the first Christmas my step-children got to spend Christmas with my side of the family. This was the first Christmas for my son as an official adult (18 years old). This was the first year in a LONG time I would be able to attend the Christmas family reunion. And sadly, it was the first Christmas without my father.

But before Christmas, our dining room table was a complete mess. Why you ask? Because I was wrapping gifts and had bags, tags, papers, and tape everywhere. And so many others did around the same time in late November and into December. And I was running very late and even was wrapping up things on December 23.

Also, my mother had her own wrapping up to do. She fell a few days before Christmas and fractured the bone leading up to her thumb (or something like that in her wrist/hand). So her right arm was wrapped in a splint-like device and she was not allowed to use her hand as normal. And yes, she is right-handed.

So my wife and I, along with our kids, trundled up into the hills and came to the aid of my mother. We wrapped up party plans, gift plans, visiting, and shopping, and all the little details of life for my mother for Christmas. And we enjoyed every minute of it.

I know my father would have enjoyed being there with all the kids. He would have enjoyed having everyone in the house and all the noise and laughter and even all the tales told. Because when you get a bunch of hillbillies together, you get a lot of tall tales. Some of them might have even had some truth to them.

So my brother and I told the family tales and elaborated on our memories of our father and our adventures together. We told stories of hunting, fishing, building, tearing down, and all other antics of male family life. We want our kids to know my father even if he is not here to tell them himself. You could also say we want our kids to know my father even if he is not here to defend himself.

It was a homespun home-run if you ask me :-)

So once all the packages were opened, all the turkey eaten, all the tales told, and all the joy we could muster had been shared generously, it was time to wrap it up and head back home. We left the tall and steep hills of West Virginia and returned again to the gentler slopes of the foothills in North Carolina.

Pulling into our driveway, there was our hound dog Millie waiting for us. She had been outside for a week and was more than ready to come inside for a change. She is an outside dog and the weather was actually quite pleasant for the time of the year it was. But still, she likes to sleep inside, and she needs at least 18 hours of sleep a day.

It seems as though no sooner had we returned than we were stirring again. The kids were going to a youth camp the next day and were already repacking. The youngest two kids spent those days with their paternal grandparents and so my wife and I had the house alone for two nights. Sleeping in is really awesome. But staying up late is very exciting, if you follow me.

And so our youth finally returned, wrapping up their year with a church camp event and staying up too late and eating way too much candy. The youngest ones wrapped up their year with yet more family. My wife and I wrapped up our year mostly snuggling together whenever we could. And Millie? Well, Millie wrapped up her year the way a hound dog should wrap up their year. She slept from one year to the next.

So 2007 is officially over. It has not been a good year in many ways. And yet there are many positives to it. We pray that 2008 brings us more joy than last year and we can look back on it and say "it was a good year".

And to wrap up this post, I think I will leave this thought: its not the road behind us that really shapes our future, its the choices we make on the road ahead that has the most impact. 


Copyright 2008, Kevin Farley (a.k.a. sixdrift, a.k.a. neuronstatic)