We had two Christmas get-togethers this year (besides the ones held at CVCA). The first was at my boss’s house on Saturday the 12th. Jim is also my running partner, so it is easy to hang out with him. There were several other CVCA folks there with spouses, but there were only 10 people all told, and I knew 8 of them (including me and Mer), so it was the right size for shy ol’ me.

I do like my coworkers, and this was a fun time. My colleagues are funny people, and I especially enjoy hanging out with the president of CVCA, RT. He is an outgoing and funny man, and it was nice to be outside of work with him.

There was food, and a music game. The music game was to guess the name of the Christmas carol based on the reading of a less-used verse from the song. It was delightful to see Mer enter “competition mode” – she sat straight up and focused entirely on the reader. I love my wife. On the other end was RT and his wife, where they kept throwing out random names of songs, much to the amusement of everyone in the room (even Mer). The women beat the men 1-0 (it was -1 for each wrong answer).

After the song game, we had a white elephant gift exchange. There were a number of funny gifts, like an inflatable SpongeBob Squarepants, and the required singing mounted fish. But, my favorite moment involved our gift. We thought we were being fairly nice – we brought our old 26″ television, since we’d been given a new one. I took a picture of the TV and put the picture in a gift bag. My co-worker Vicki picked it, and had the strangest expression on her face, and she called her husband back into the room to see the gift. A minute later it became clear why – when RT opened the gift from Vicki, it was a 12″ television. So, Vicki traded up, I guess.

Sunday we also had a get-together. We met up with Aunt Mary and we took her to Macaroni Grill for lunch. After an excellent lunch, we headed over to Mt. Pleasant Church (Aunt Mary’s church), where we joined up with a group of about 8 others to go caroling at a couple of nursing homes and a hospital. The group was about half youth (under 20), which was fun to see. Getting to sing to older and some sick people was very moving and gratifying. The people seemed really very grateful. We wandered up and down halls in the buildings singing, and people came to the doors of their rooms and sang with us. One lady followed us around in her wheelchair. It was quite wonderful.

After the singing, we went back to the church, and they served us a light supper, which was generous on the desserts. Yum! A weekend mixture of family, friends, and total strangers seemed a good way to spend a Christmas time weekend.