Six Flags Trip

We went to Six Flags for Jodi's Birthday. We had a great time.

Grackle Invasion

A flock of grackles descended on our yard this morning. It was way cool. There were thousands of them and they completely encircled our house. We enjoyed it the few minutes it lasted.

Christmas Morning 08

Ghillie Suit

David spent some of his Christmas money on this ghillie suit. And here's what Savannah, the southern girl, does on Christmas Eve.

The True Meaning of Christmas

My daughter and I watched a funny and wholesome TV movie the other day. It was a kids’ show on a kids’ network. Merry Christmas Drake and Josh on Nickelodeon. The plot was basically that one of them was playing Santa in a mall and promised a cute little girl, who was a foster child, the best Christmas ever.
The show was really funny and we enjoyed it, but there was a line that troubled me: one of the boys said, “What is Christmas all about? If I asked a hundred people, I suspect I would get a hundred different answers.”
Really? We can all have our own ideas of what Christmas is all about? Sure enough, the movie presented several wonderful things that we associate with Christmas, like snow and being with family and friends, but never mentioned the birth of Christ. He didn’t ask, “What does Christmas mean to you?” but “what is it all about?” Remember when Charlie Brown pondered the true meaning of Christmas and Linus quoted from the Christmas story found in the Bible? Well, that was 42 years ago. Today, the media seems afraid to offend anyone.
What is Christmas all about? According to the dictionary, Christmas is defined as: noun. 1. The Christian feast commemorating the birth of Jesus. 2. December 25, the day on which this feast is celebrated. From Old English Cristes Maesse, Christ’s Festival.
So Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus. Its meaning is not open to any other interpretation.
Christmas has obviously become too big a deal for just one day. It is a whole season. And, as life would have it, there are several holidays and Holy days near this time. That’s okay. If Drake and Josh’s movie had been called Happy Holidays Drake and Josh, they might have asked about the true meaning of the holidays. A hundred people just might give a hundred different answers like Hanukah, Kwanzaa, lights, shopping, parties, or simply winter break. These are all perfectly wonderful events, but Christmas is about the birth of Christ.
Christmas is the 800-pound gorilla on the calendar. We plan our whole year around it then drop what we are doing and head home to celebrate it. We spend more money than we have to embrace it. In fact, our whole economy is supported by it. Retailers might never make a profit without it, and that trickles into every aspect of the economy. It is a trillion-dollar bail-out each and every year.
And if I may say so, Jesus is the 800-pound gorilla in the pages of History. We acknowledge his birth every time we write the date. His book is the number one best seller of all time and will never be bested. More books have been written about him than any other topic. More human events have been shaped by his words than any other person’s. More money has been given in his name than for any other reason. And more people have lived their lives for him than for any other person.
So what is Christmas all about? If Drake or Josh would ask me, I would tell them that it is a celebration of God Himself, coming to earth as a child, just as it was prophesied, to humbly become of us, to teach us how to treat each other, and to die on our behalf, paying for our sins so we can have peace with God and live eternally in heaven.
That’s what Christmas is all about. Everything else is just window dressing. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas from my family to yours.

(The picture came from my friend Rick in Las Vegas. That's the palm tree in his front yard during this week's rare snow event.)

Christmas 08

Jodi's Infusion

This is the infusion clinic at Texas Neurology in Dallas. We come up here once per month for her Tysabri infusion. The male nurse working with her is Warren. I always walk across the street to get her a Starbucks coffee while we're here. We've been coming to this building for 18 years now.

Don't Train Your Children to Tune You Out

Are you training your children to tune you out? You can say the right thing at the wrong time and it will fall on deaf ears, not doing anyone any good.

If you walk into the living room while your children are engrossed in what’s on television and begin to explain what you expect of them the next day, don’t count on their hearing any of it. If you tend to repeat instructions to them over and over, they quickly learn this and will tune you out, knowing you will say it again. They will reason that maybe they’ll catch it on the third or tenth time. If you keep nagging them about something they already know, they’ll tune you out. If they learn that you’ll leave nothing unsaid, they’ll tune you out while you’re doing it.

What I try to do is make sure it is a good time to speak, I have my children’s attention, and then say what I need to. That way, I’m not training them to isolate my voice from the din of noise in their lives and tune me plumb out.

Some things are better left unsaid. In fact, a lot of things are better left unsaid.

My daughter had left from school the other day, without telling us she was with a friend. I sat at the school and waited for her for several minutes. Finally, I caught on and realized she must have ridden with someone else. I didn’t panic, I just went home. Sure enough, she met me at the door looking very sheepish and guilty. She was also truly sorry for what she had done and told me so. I said very little. My wife wanted me to lay into her for doing that but I said, “No, she knows what she did was wrong and she feels bad about it. I don’t think she’ll do it again.” My wife, being a woman and all, wanted me to lecture our daughter. I refused.

Some people enjoy going to a church where the preacher tells them how bad they are every Sunday. They get their toes stepped on and feel bad about it. They don’t change their behavior, they just know where to go to do their penitence. I refuse to give that luxury to my parishioners or my children. I want them to own what they’ve learned.

I read a long time ago that the average parent repeats every command twelve times. As you can imagine, children soon learn this. So, they tune us out the first eleven times. It’s like they have a big mental clock in their heads and know when they better listen up. If the house is on fire, we better talk fast.

When my children so much as raise their voices at each other, my wife wants me to jump into their argument and referee. I refuse. Continual interfering in their lives trains them to tune me out. My idea is to wait until I’m really needed before I get involved. In my wife’s defense, though, I sometimes wait too long, being a guy and all. I may even tune them out. That’s why men and women make good parents – we tend to balance each other.

Just remember, if you continually speak to your children in a nagging tone, they will tune you out. If you repeat yourself over and over, they will tune you out. If you speak to them when they are concentrating on something else, they will tune you out. If you leave nothing unsaid, they will tune you out. The idea is to train our children to listen when we speak. If we’ll do our part, we may just succeed at tuning them in.