Christmas Visit from Dad

Today is Sunday. Sunday means Church. Church means reflection.

Christmas was this past week and it was a good day. My Dad was in town for a few days and we got to spend some real daddy daughter time together. I have to admit that it didn’t really feel like Christmas though because my Mom wasn’t there and my brother wasn’t there. This was my first Christmas without a real sense of family. It was just my husband, my Dad and me. I understand why everyone says the mother is the center of the family; it seemed so empty without her. She was the one to keep up on what was going on in everyone’s life, giving love or service, and listening when that’s what you needed. My Dad doesn’t know what to do without her; we each just take it one day at a time. Now that the sad parts are out of the way I'll move onto the happy parts.

While my Dad was here, on Saturday we got to drive up to Logan to visit a friend, the Bishop from years ago in our Cincinnati ward. My Dad served as one of his counselors. We drove up and spent about an hour at his house just talking and catching up with him. While driving we also got to talk and reminisce about good memories with the family. On Friday my Dad and husband got to take a tour of my work and meet my co-workers which was great because my Dad works in a similar field and he got to ask all kinds of questions about how my work does things, I was so proud. On Sunday the family went to church and got to hear from the foremost authority on Joseph Smith. My Dad and I also took a drive down to Spanish fork and trying to find a house of someone my Dad knew from college. We didn’t find it but we did find the Hari Chrishna temple. We stopped and took pictures and had some unexpected fun. My Dad wanted some pictures to put on dating sites. My poor Dad can’t believe he’s 57 and has to start dating again. After our driving adventure we made dinner and took it to my husband at work and spent his break talking. On Monday we spent all day driving around trying to find a restaurant that would be open that evening (Christmas Eve). My husband works in retail and had to work until 6:30 that day so we needed a reservation for 7:30. After about ten restaurants we found it, Macaroni Grill was open until 9pm. We made our reservation and headed home to do laundry quite the rousing Christmas Eve activity. Our dinner was delicious and made even better by the fact I didn’t have to make it, thank you Macaroni Grill for all you do. I awoke Christmas morning to find Santa had left me a fuzzy purple bathrobe on the bedroom door. My Christmas tree was glowing with white lights and presents were spilling out from beneath it. Our little family wished each other a Merry Christmas as we videotaped each other opening presents. I think the highlight may have been my Dad receiving a hula girl air freshener from Santa. He hung it around his neck and told everyone that called he had a hula girl hanging on him all day. We also got the call from my Mom’s family in Ireland to wish us a Happy Christmas and tell us about their Christmas festivities and wished we were there. Later some friends of ours stopped by with their new baby to eat Christmas dessert and play videogames on our Nintendo Wii. It was quite the Christmas.

The next day I had to go back to work unfortunately but Dad and Ben joined me for lunch and we went and ate Thai, it was delicious as always. Later my Dad took one of our digital cameras and drove up to Park City to take some pictures and get a ski Utah sweatshirt. He made it home safely the next day. It was quite the pleasant visit.

Hope your Christmas was a good one.

-D

This was actually written Dec. 11, I just forgot to post it...

I miss talking to people who are active members of a different church than I am. I used to work in a call center and talk to my friend that was a baptist who was veryh active in him church. We would talk about religion and what each of us believed personally and in our respective churches. Out here in Utah I'm mostly surrounded by people of the same religion as me so I don't get a chance to share what I believe with others because they believe the same thing. I think I prefer being in an area where my faith isn't the predominat one, that way I don't take it for granted. Don't get my wrong I go to a school that is run by my church so obviously I still get a regular dose of religion but its not the same.

I'm actually staying in Utah for Christmas this year. This is for two reasons, one is work constraints; my job and my husband's job both require us to work almost all the way up until Christmas as well as the day after Christmas. Reason two is my Dad is coming here because Christmas in New Hampshire just wouldn't be the same without my mom.

It's weird I'll be walking on campus and all of a sudden start to call my mom's cell phone number to ask her how to make a certain food or if she's read a certain book and then I'll realize shes not going to pick up the phone. Its like I forget she's gone, just for a second. Or I'll be listening to a song and I'll have tears in my eyes for no reason. Of course I don't feel like she's really gone. I'm not sure what you believe in but in my church we believe that even after death, our loved ones continue to do missionary work in the next life and are still serving our Heavenly Father they just have the benefit of knowing him a little better than we do in this life. Either way I'm sure my Mom is still doing good in the next life. She was an awesome person always serving others, taking someone dinner when they're sick, or staying with a lady from my church who was in a wheelchair so the woman's son could go to scout camp or just hang out with kids his age for a few hours. She taught sunday school for the kids at my church ages 8 to 12 and I have to admit she had a whole lot more patience than me. I taught her class for a few weeks and was about ready to pull out my hair, but she just loved people. Especially little kids. She wanted to be a grandma more than anything. She didn't get that chance since it's just my brother and me in our family and my brother isn't married and I wasn't planning on having kids until I could afford to have kids which probably won't be for a few years yet.

That’s my thoughts for the moment. Have a good day.