Christmas
Wedding bells, etc
I’ve taken plenty of pictures the past few days, but the dial-up internet connection here at the folks' house isn’t up to uploading them, so they’ll wait until we get home on Sunday. (To be quite fair, my folks aren’t Luddites in the least when it comes to the internet; they simply live so far out that their only options are dial-up or ridiculously-expensive satellite. But I digress.)
It’s such fun to have the whole family together again for a weekend - Andrew and Heather are in from Washington; Ryan is here from Chicago; we’ve come up from Iowa and the rest are, for the moment, locals of Richland Center, WI. I have a feeling these full-family gatherings will be fewer and farther between as the years go on, so we need to enjoy these when we have the chance.
New Years' Eve we celebrated Christmas as a family, exchanging gifts and eating rather too much. I was blessed with a case for my iPod and a copy of N. T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God, a lengthy volume that will likely keep me busy for a long while this upcoming year. (Thanks, Ryan!) New Years' Day was rather uneventful; much decorating was done at the church, and it was concluded by my brother Aaron’s bachelor party - a party much unlike what typically comes to mind when you say “bachelor party”. Let’s just say it was attended by nearly 20 men who carried Bibles and weren’t afraid to use them. :-) It was a good, encouraging time, enjoyed by all.
Yesterday, though, the preparations continued in earnest for Aaron and Emily’s wedding. Final decorations were hung; we walked through the rehearsal; finally, we ate a LOT of tasty catered Mexican food for the rehearsal dinner, and celebrated Aaron’s birthday. Oh, and Rebecca made the cakes, and whipped up a LOT of frosting. (Pictures to follow.)
Now it’s Saturday morning and we’re praying that the freezing rain forecast for late this afternoon holds off for a few extra hours so everyone can make it to the wedding. The big event is at 4:30 this afternoon, with dinner and dancing to follow. Big congratulations go out to Aaron and Emily on this landmark day in their lives. Now if you’ll excuse me… I think I have a shirt to go iron.
Just Us at Christmas
In the 11 or 12 Christmases Becky and I have spent together, each has been celebrated with one set of parents or the other; most of them with my family, which has always lived closer, but a few Christmases we’ve made the drive to North Carolina to celebrate with Becky’s family. This year, though, a convergence of plans and events has set things up so that we will be spending Christmas day at home, just us and the girls. We’ll get to see my family the following week (for a wedding, no less!) but this week it’ll just be us.
Becky and I now get to start to decide what our family Christmases will look like. There’s a huge amount of latitude, given that there are no expectations from anyone. If we want to make changes, now is the time. If you think about it too long, it becomes a little bit overwhelming. Becky touched on it yesterday when we were discussing our Christmas dinner menu. She said she didn’t plan on making all the usual side dishes to go with the ham, but when I noted this was her chance to start a new tradition, she said she didn’t really know where to start.
It seems to me that part of the reason traditions don’t change too greatly from generation to generation isn’t just the fond memories we have of years gone by, or the actual love of specific foods or songs; it is also the added comfort and ease of just keeping things the same - in other words: change is hard. Now, that’s not a very heartwarming thought for a pre-Christmas afternoon, but it’s what I’ve got for today.
So yeah, I don’t forsee any huge changes for the Hubbs family this Christmas. We might go wild and fix a few different side-dishes to go with the ham. But we’re still having ham. Some things are just too sacred to mess around with.