Happy Christmas Eve to Family and Friends!!
The house is silent (Joshua is resting), Naomi and family are celebrating with Travis’ family and Rebekah and family come tomorrow. I put up the Christmas tree today and will wrap presents in a little bit. This is not much different than last year, except Joshua didn’t make it home until dinner time and then we went to Mass. We tried to go out for dinner but found nothing open so we came home and he cooked a good Italian dish. Tonight we’ll probably do something similar but it will be a little more uniquely healthy. Last year was actually the first time I had spent Christmas Eve day alone and it was fairly lonely, so having Joshua here this year is so nice…even though we didn’t do a lot of Christmasy things…We juiced!!! 🙂 (one of the most important activities of life right now).
However, our going to Mass tonight will be his first time to attend since he went into the hospital Oct. 30th. Thank you, Lord. We’re hoping his back will hold out for the whole time but he can always get up and walk around. It will be nice just to be there. He has gone out for a couple of hours twice this week and he looks and feels much better. We’ll take a picture tomorrow for our Christmas picture and you can see the ‘new and leaner Joshua’…he’s lost almost 40lbs which as I mentioned he’s not terribly sad about, but the ‘diet’ is not something he’d recommend of course. He put on a pair of jeans he hasn’t worn since college or grad school a couple of days ago and it felt really good…You have to find a little humor and look for the good side of things when in crisis. He’s so good at that anyways.
I’m assuming you’ll read this after Christmas, so we will say hope yours ‘was’ wonderful. One BIG gift for all of us is that good friends of ours (the Gullicksons) brought over enough food and drink for our entire Christmas meal. And it all looks so yummy. Thanks so much again Kathy. Travis was really thrilled when he heard the news because he had volunteered to cook Christmas dinner. It will just make the day so much less hectic and will give us more time to spend together enjoying the day and each other.
Love to you all,
Kristi, Joshua and family
Merry Christmas, and a very healing new year.
Happy New Year, Shua. And all the Casteels. May His grace be new every morning, none more so than this coming reset.
Happy New Year Shua! Thinking of you today and of that Lebanese restaurant across the street from our flat at 107A in Oxford. Ha! I send love and peace and prayers your way today.
A blessing for the new year….
May God Bless you and keep you!
May God’s face shine upon you,and be gracious to you!
May god look upon you kindly and give you peace (and good health)!
(paraphrased from Numbers 6:24-27)