My Christmas Day

I had a wonderful Christmas day, mostly.  I went at noon to my favorite gourmet pizzeria for lunch, hoping somebody amongst the families of my three children, all adults now, would finally mature enough as human beings to put aside their induced hatreds from the bitter divorce two decades ago that their mother fully and purposefully enmeshed them in as tender, immature children, but no such luck there.

I returned home and went for a short run on the beautiful, clear day, reflecting on my blessings that I had at least been enabled by the good Lord to be able to provide safety and shelter and support and coaching (both figuratively and literally) and means and guidance and love and full, free education through college to each my three sons until each reached maturity and later forgiveness, and that I had and have always been there for them as a father and a man.  I then packed up my Christmas tree which I had set up on my covered side porch and drove it over to a friend's house where I spent the remainder of the daylight hours in the true spirit of the holiday, sharing it with a loved one.

We trimmed the tree at her house and it looked pretty Christmasy when we were done.  We exchanged a few gifts and opened presents.

I cooked a sumptuous brunch and we enjoyed each other's company listening to carols and discussing the prospects of an even better year in the offing, especially for our mortally threatened country, imperiled stunningly and perniciously from domestic enemies acting either through reckless ignorance or self-aggrandizing, rapacious malice.  Then because my vision has been compromised at least temporarily due to my year of successive eye surgeries during the past year which makes it more difficult to drive at night, we packed up my car and I returned home before the gathering gloom at day's end turned into fully enveloping darkness.