The Keys to Christmas

This could well be titled "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" instead of "What we did for Christmas Day", and I think I like that idea :)
We found a local church here and they had a wonderful Christmas Eve service. There were perhaps 80 folks there, mostly adults and elderly adults although we did see a couple of falilies with children. The service was full of carols and scripture reading and a couple of solo presentaions. Even the pastor sang a solo song in Spanish.
With every carol we sang, the first verse was english and the second verse spanish. With every scripture reading, the english had the sapnish words up on the screen and the spanish had the english words up. It was a very creative and down-to-earth service and I am so glad we got to go. In spite of all that has happened during this last year, it is so god to take time to reflect on the really, really important central matters of faith and what God did for us that night.
Please remember the reason we are able to celebrate in the first place ... because we have hope; abundant hope.

In keeping with our new "sushi-for-easter-dinner" line of holiday traditions we did not exactly wake up on Christmas morning, head down to the tree, open our gifts and then prepare a feast. It was more like ... wake up early, load the bicycles into the truck, and drive to Key West for the day. Since it was Christmas day, we packed a lunch in case everything was shut down, but we found businesses open all along the way and when we arrived it seemed like any ordinary business day. I presume it gets a lot busier and more hectic on a normal weekend, but we enjoyed the day immensely and took in several miles worth of sightseeing and people-watching.
The trip there is about 140 miles along US-1 from our RV park, and it took a little over three hours as there are innumerable slow speed limits and it's mostly a two lane road. We found a spot to park, and decided not to feed the meter on a holiday hoping that a ticket might be less than the meter :). We did check around, and it seemed no other meters were being fed that day.
We rode out to the State park, around the downtown area, and out to the end of Duvall Street to a place called 'Sunset Pier' where we enjoyed a traditional Christmas meal of chiken breast in a mango salsa and a Reuben (also with a mango sauce instead of dressing). This day was maked by fair winds, enjoyable warmth and a view of the Gulf of Mexico. We put our feet in the water of the Gulf and made sure we had sunscreen on. We stood on the end of the pier along with hundreds of other folks and watched a stunning sunset, hoping that all the sailboats floating by would not block our view. A round of applause broke out after the sun had slipped below the slightly couded horizon, and some carribean style music started up somewhere... you could tell there was a party or two in the air and that this area has a penchant for good times.
We packed up the bikes and headed home, arriving back at the RV around 9:30. A different and fun kind of Christmas.
I don't miss shoveling snow, in fact this is the first time in 31 years that I haven't had too, but it's still pretty weird to think it's the dead of winter here.