We celebrate Christmas through the epiphany at my house, so we spent January 8 taking down and packing away our Christmas decorations.
Boxing up ornaments and holidays can be something of a depressing task, particularly if its done alone. I know this from previous experience. Lori joined me in the task this year, and we completed the work in about two hours.
The project provided an opportunity for Lori and I to reflect on the holiday season and the year that was 2016. We inventoried the many blessings we enjoyed, large and small, and concluded 2016 really was a pretty good year for us.
We worked, we traveled to visit relatives, we enjoyed some TV shows, we liked the movies we saw at the theater, we read several good books, shared savory meals with family and friends, and expanded our family of dogs from one to two when we adopted Otto in December.
We had more victories than setbacks during the year. We welcomed some new friends and offered a final goodbye to a few others. We ended the year with the same number of family members we had at the beginning of 2016, and having experienced the loss of loved ones in years past, we are grateful for that accomplishment.
Our wins outnumbered our losses, and the Cubs won the World Series. It was a good year. We enter 2017 with a sincere appreciation for the things we believe are essential — family, health, food, shelter, faith and hope.
These are the things I thought about as I packed away the holiday decorations and pondered what might await us in 2017. And the adventure continues on my westward road.
— Thank you for reading. Email comments to kbotterman@gmail.com.
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