Merry Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve this year found us visiting back in Michigan with the extended families rather than home with just the little group residing at The Mole Hole. The plan on where, and with whom, we spend the Eve and the actual Day with, must remain flexible with the day of the week Christmas actually falls, and how that interacts with school and work vacations.

We spent the Eve with one "side" and had a wonderful get together that broke up around 9:00. We had a half-hour ride home, but extended it a bit with a detour through the little town that that I spent my teenage years in. We had heard that they had a really neat, new "tradition" of lighting all of the downtown buildings with miniature lights, and that it was a must-see.

Almost to Main Street, we passed by one of the homes that I had lived in there, this one for my 13th and 14th Christmases. I pointed it out to my daughter and she thought the old house, an all brick, slate-roofed Tudor built in 1919, looked pretty "cool". I'm sure that I'd shown it to her before, but probably three or four years ago, thus not remembered by an 11-year old mind.

Next came the rows of neighborhood streets branching off left and right, and I was delighted to see that the real tradition of lighting the curbs of each street with real luminarias was still there. That is the one thing I remember most fondly about Christmas in this little suburban village. My sisters and I would walk some of these streets on our way to Midnight Mass at the Lutheran Church that was near home. In the cold and snowy Christmases that were more commonplace back then, it was a heart-warming sight to see and experience out in the December night.

We finally got to Main Street and it was a indeed a sight to see. Lights of every color covered every building and business downtown, and hung in every tree. Nothing that I think is all that original, but definitely a lot of work for the folks, I'm sure, and very pretty.

So notching up fifty-some Christmases this year with a chance to see something old and something new. No snow, unfortunately, but there's a plus to that too, considering we are traveling by car!

We lay our heads down after a long, tiring, but joyful day. No sugarplums dancing in our heads, but thankful for health, family and for the ultimate gift of the Christ-child on this night, long ago.