In my house we celebrate Christmas in Gerglish, that is to say in German and in English. We had both children with us (a present unto itself in my book) as we opened presents yesterday evening (I'd say at midnight but one of us is way too old to stay up that late without becoming even more grumpy than usual) just as we did when we all lived in Germany. That was magical enough, I suppose, or should be except for me there's always more and always shall be.
It is thirty-six years ago tonight that I first spoke to the woman I was to marry. I very brazenly (for me) asked her her name after she sat in my lap during an extremely liquid moment with my friend (and ultimately best man) Chris in a joint near Eschenheimer Tor in Frankfurt am Main (there was no place else left to sit, she'd looked). I know how that sentence reads, and it wasn't but not for lack of my trying.
With all due respect to The Magi, that is my most enduring Christmas memory and I suspect will be for the rest of my life. Admittedly it colors my perspective on the holidays and casts a warm glow that bathes every memory in a happiness that it might not otherwise hold, but judging from the way we each seem to pause when we encounter one another in the crowded shops as the shopping days dwindled down and took an extra moment for those around us, I'm not alone in my feelings.
I hope your Christmas is as wonderful as you wish it to be and that peace and harmony (not just a sense or scent of them, but the genuine article) you experience today is such that it becomes more than a memory, but rather, a goal to achieve everyday as the new year soon begins. And before you ask, that is NOT a candid of me atop our living room tree, but Merry Christmas to you as well!
-bill kenny
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