Christmas 1

I got out of worship practice without trying and the wireless internet signal that I use at home is back, so I have decided to type something here.

I left Sliverdale (Silverdale) on Friday the 23rd of December. I left a bit after 8 pm because I wanted to avoid the worst of the traffic. I succeeded for the most part, but I was slowed down by a convoy of cherry picker trucks around the junction of 520 and 405. I am glad that they were out fixing power connections though.

I arrived at my parents home around ten thirty and did some talking to my dad about various things, kinda like I did when I visited him for the thanksgiving holiday. He was positively impressed with some of the writing that I had done along those lines (no, I don't mean the thanksgiving blogging).

I spent most of the next day with my friend whom many people would label as ultra-conservative. We didn't do a whole lot, but he convinced me to give Christmas gifts to members of my family instead of going with my interpretation of Proverbs 22:16. Oh yes, we did do something: we got all muddy by successfully trying to fix a water pipe for his apartment building because he is the landlord. So that was Saturday.

On Christmas Eve Sunday I got up during the morning and took my shower before church, and as I was exiting the shower or shortly thereafter, I realized how little affection I have for a whole bunch the saints at my home church. Of course, I think that this is a bad thing because of the first chapter of Philippians 1, but I did have my dad pray about it on the way and I think that I managed to not bite anyone's head off while I was in the church building. At any rate, I don't remember finding myself being judgmental about particular things that people did in the past (these things aren't usually even sinful, so I know that I am just trying to make myself feel like I am better than them (evil!)) so that is something.

After church I accompanied my dad to his mother's apartment and we visited with her for much longer than expected to. There was some discussion about where the Christmas celebration would be held the following day. I am told that this discussion had been going on for some time. I think that the basic idea was that everyone except my grandmother had decided that the bulk of the celebrating would be done at my dear sister's home, but that my grandmother was still sure that it should be done at her own home, even though this majority was supposed to have been explained to her numerous times. So someone (I actually don't know who) must have got the idea that we should show up at her apartment on Christmas Eve in an effort to make her feel better. The problem was that she was quite tired and didn't really want to see us all right just then. Even so, my dad and my grandmother and I all waited around for the rest of my family to be show up with cookies and such. I didn't know about all of this when I walked in the door and I was quite hungry the whole time and then all there was to eat were candy and M&Ms.

There was also the UNO game which had all sorts of new rules that I didn't like and I began to behave in accordance what Paul Adams told me is passive-aggressiveness by drawing many, many cards from the draw pile whenever I was made to draw. I did this in an effort to make people feel bad, but it didn't work. I did finally manage to decide to control myself and learn the new rules and play the game right. I wonder if that had anything to do with the sermon which was about self control. I don't remember thinking about the sermon very much that afternoon.