Our First Christmas Day Afar

Yes, Mona once wore faux hair. And I once forgot to zip.

In 1968 Mona and I met on Labor Day Weekend Saturday, and on our very first Christmas Eve we became engaged. That was 46 Christmas Eves ago. 

Tonight that’s 46 Christmases ago.  46 amazing and wonderful years.  Some of them I would call miraculous, for the struggles we had, and the ways God blessed us through them.

Today was our first Christmas away from family and a lifetime of friends.  And God blessed us through it well.  We pray those we missed seeing today prayed for Him to do the same for them.  For He answers prayer.  Amen!

At 10 am this morning Martha pulled her car up beside our coach and took us to join her in her Christmas Day traditions.  They began at 10:30 am at Christ Church of Lehigh Acres, Florida.  This was our first ever Christmas Day Church Service ever. And Pastor Ralph, of Alva UMC, was there as well.

Thank you Pastor Lia for welcoming us ‘home’.  And Thank You Pastor Tom (Lia’s husband, who serves a church in North Fort Myers) for your story and music leading.

Martha has directed the Riverside Retreat UMC Camp for 15 years and retires this April to Northwest Tennessee.

  

She drove us to her camp, and home, just 5 miles east of Alva on route 78 from Alva to show us where we will take the coach to dump tanks and refill our fresh water tomorrow.

 

Then she showed us a bit of her camp.

Built along the quiet Caloosahatchee Waterway the camp offers all sorts of water craft and everything you’d expect from a well run Christian camp.

About 5 miles further east is Martha’s friend Patty’s home.  Patty attends Carlson Memorial UMC in LaBelle, Florida, maybe 5 miles further east on 78. Martha used to as well. Every year Patty invites friends, new and old, to a potluck dinner at her home. 

Every Thanksgiving Martha invites Patty and some of the same friends, and more new ones, to her home for Dinner.  These folks will dearly miss Martha when she heads for Tennessee come April.

 

This year Patty’s son’s family drove in from Omaha, Nebraska.  Their two boys and Maida’s children received Legos for Christmas from… who else?

Please keep Maida’s mother in prayer.  She has just suffered her third stroke and is in the South Miami Baptist Hospital. Maida is getting a ride to visit her tomorrow (Friday).

 

After the meal and the presents were handed out to the kids, Baby Jesus’ birthday cake was cut.  Followed by Patty’s reading of a special nativity story for the kid in each of us.

How my memories of Christmas Eve birthday parties returned as I remembered my own father’s reading each Christmas Eve from the big family King James Bible our daughter Jenn now has, of the Christmas Story. “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed…”

Martha drove us home and we promised to call her when we bring the coach over for our weekly chore.  The camp has a very nice RV park and all year long they have some who pay to camp here, and others who work-camp (exchange time and skill around the camp) for the hookups and space.

Martha tells us there are more work-campers now than ever before.  Mostly retired, but some not, who just need a rent free place to live, and are happy to work for it.

The sun set on our first Christmas Day as simply man and wife, mother and father, Grandad and Grammy. Wonderful phone calls had been made, or messages left, between the many we have missed seeing.

And with darkness, we watched the wonderful late 1970’s ‘Best Christmas Pageant Ever’ starring Loretta Swit through Youtube, 

and the DVD we carry with us of that 1983 classic, ‘A Matter of Principal’ starring Alan Arkin.

Memories of Christmases past came floating over us, and the loving bond we share through all of them with our kids, grandkids, relatives and friends.

God has blesses us, when we ask Him to, even when we can’t get together for Christmas, everyone (per Tiny Tim).

-Ken