Home for the Holidays

Before I begin today's post, I just had something I wanted to add to yesterday's topic du jour, "Cwismas Memowies." For many years, the traditional Christmas morning breakfast for my boys was Christmas Crunch--a special version of Cap'n Crunch cereal with red and green crunchberries that only came out during the holiday season. My guys loved that cereal! It just wasn't Christmas without Christmas Crunch. I haven't seen it in a dog's age, but if anyone out there knows where to find it, let me know. We've graduated on to bacon and egg brunches on Christmas morning, but it would be fun to have some Christmas Crunch on hand for old times' sake.

Anyway, today I'm just thinking about what a happy Christmas this is going to be, because it will be the first time since Christmas 2007 that we will have our whole family together to celebrate the birth of Christ. For the past three Christmases, our oldest son hasn't been able to be with us. In 2008, he was on deployment in Iraq, and we could only see him on Christmas via Skype.

In 2009, that same son got married in Wisconsin six days before Christmas; so understandably, he spent that holiday with his new wife and her family out there in the land of the Packers fans, and the newlyweds Skyped with us from our daughter-in-law's parents' home. Then in 2010, our boy was on deployment once again, and he Skyped with us from Afghanistan.

 

The Army is a tough life, and anyone would understand a soldier's need to complain about his plight; but our son's smile lit up that computer screen during those Skype sessions from the war zone. He managed to talk and laugh with us on those Christmas days as though things were absolutely normal. But we feel like our son has more than paid his dues, and now this year, miraculously, we are going to have him with us--and not only him, but his lovely wife and adorable twin baby girls, too. Woo hoo!

So we are feeling particularly blessed right now. And we pray for all the troops who are serving overseas this Christmas and feeling homesick, and for the families that are going to miss them. God bless those brave Americans and keep them safe until they, too, can be home for the holidays.