It was a very different Christmas this year.
It was my neice Laken's first Christmas. Laken is an absolute angel. At 10 months, she has developed an absolutely joyous personality. I love watching how she reacts to things. I love her smile - and I love her laugh.
It was the first time my wife and I did a Christmas vacation. We spent most of Christmas week in the Great Smokies --- rented a cabin in Gatlinburg and did some touristy stuff. Gatliburg and Pigeon Forge are amazingly beautiful as it is, but the Christmas lights made it even more fun (save the traffic on the Saturday following Christmas - it was nuts). We even went to Dollywood for the first time and liked it so much we bought season passes for 2009.
It was the first Christmas since my wife and I have been married that we didn't attend Christmas Eve service. We have done this every year up until now. We had hoped to attend a Christmas Eve service at the Presbyterian church in Gatlinburg. But when I asked some locals if that church was having one, I found out it was not. Apparently that church's membership has dwindled severely in recent years, which is very diasppointing and sad - and they were not having any services on Christmas Eve. We decided to do Christmas Eve in, at our cabin. I felt really guilty though about not even going to one of the other local churches' Christmas Eve services, but.....
It did end up being the first Christmas we went to church away from home. On Sunday when we were walking through Dollywood, we saw a church inside the park. At first glance I thought, "Wow, they made a replica of a country church here. I'll bet it has some interesting displays inside." Well, we went inside and found out that it is a full-blown church. We heard the pastor talking to someone about the fact they do 11 am and 5:30 pm services every Sunday when the park is open. We decided to attend the 5:30 service that day - which ended up being packed. We heard a wonderful message and sang Christmas carols. So I ended up not only coming away less guilty about the whole missing Christmas Eve service thing, but happy we were able to celebrate Christmas and its true miracle - the birth of Jesus Christ - actually in church.
Those are probably the things that will stick out in my mind from Christmas 2008 - but these little ones are what just made my Christmas:
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