We’ve had several holidays where we’ve missed loved ones who are overseas, and overseas on dangerous missions, where we aren’t allowed to make contact. It’s gut-wrenching. I have another one of those Christmases again this year.
I’ve had lots of people ask me what do I do? Well, I get the pictures out, and I look at all the years when we had all four kids and they were little, playing at the beach, going to Disneyland, going on trips to Hawaii and once on a cruise to the Caribbean. We laugh and talk about how funny things tickled us. The trip to the Caribbean had been changed because of a storm, so we were at a different island on Christmas Day. There was an impromptu buffet of local dishes, many of them brought by some of the families of one particular church group, who took pity on us. Their little church choir sang Christmas carols unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. What they might have lacked in musical skills they more than made up in enthusiasm!
It was a Christmas gift I will forever cherish.