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