It’s really easy to forget what Christmas is all about, so the title is an extra reminder. We had a great Christmas, and while I got some really nice gifts, my dad had one of those moments again. He said, “we need to be thankful for friends and family, that’s what’s really important, not all the material stuff.” Don’t know if I can really expand on that too much, but I just want to take a moment to mention some of the ‘important’ things I’m thankful for before I post some pictures of all the presents and such. I’m thankful for my wife, and my parents, and my sister, and my cousins (all of them, even Afton…). I’m thankful for the little girl that’s on the way, and I’m thankful for my friends, at work, at church, and anywhere else. And I’m thankful for Scooter, Roo, and Oliver.

Now that I’ve gone all serious on you, there’s some completely unserious pictures and one of Amanda at seventeen weeks along (she’s in week twenty now) in the gallery.

A couple of my cousins posted their Christmas letters on their blogs, so I figured I’d follow suit, sort of. I actually put together a little photo collage that we sent out this year, but in case you didn’t get one (sorry), here it is:

For more details, you can of course read back through my blog posts for the year. The side project I started, God Impact, is going quite well also. I’ve only missed one day (except for yesterday, when I forgot to hit the publish button).

We’ve also had a lot of exciting things happening at our church, and there’s a little info over at www.glendiveag.org.

It’s amazing to me that God can still show me new things in a story I’ve heard and read a hundred times or more. This morning, Pastor mentioned the host of angels that appeared to shepherds just outside of Bethlehem. I’m sure that I’m not the only one who has had this misconception, but I’ve always had this mental picture of fifty or so angels appearing in the night sky. Of course, any shepherd (because shepherds were ‘nobodies’) would be amazed at seeing a group of angels.
Wait a second. The Bible said ‘host’. What is a host? A host is certainly more than fifty. Perhaps a host is several hundred? ‘Host’ is most often used to describe armies in the Bible. It always meant thousands of soldiers. Sometimes it was a hundred thousand or more. Wow! That would amaze more than humble shepherds. That would amaze even the mightiest king with the strongest army in history.
And God sent them to shepherds. Base, lowly, humble, filthy, rugged, worthless shepherds. Who, in their right mind, would send a host of angles to shepherds? Only God. Because he knew they would tell everybody. Because, outcasts that they were, shepherds were dependable. Because shepherds took care of their sheep.