Well, enough melodramatic monologues, let's talk about Christmas! December is a great month, and was made especially great with the mild winter we have had thus far! (Okay, so we currently have 8 inches of snow from last night, but up until now it was great!) Andee and I were able to attend a few Christmas celebrations here in Iowa, celebrating with Andee's Residency crew, our Small Group, and with Prairie Lakes Church! I truly love our family away from home, and getting to spend some time with these wonderful people really made this season special! I was also very happy to lead one of my favourite Christmas songs with the Worship Team at PLC, 'O Come O Come Emmanuel'. I love Christmas time so much!
We were also able to head back home to Canada for the holidays! After hitting intense traffic due to the slick roads during a snow storm in both Michigan and West of Toronto, we were happy to arrive home after almost 16 hours of straight driving. For those of you who were wishing for a White Christmas because 'it's just so pretty' or 'it just doesn't feel like Christmas without snow', well, you got your wish! And the dozens of people on our route who spun out on the highways (one directly in front of us that we almost hit) and the thousands of people stuck in traffic appreciate these well wishes. If you are traveling less than half an hour for your Christmas celebrations, please do all us travelers a favor and quit your wishing! And boy were we missing the 'heavy traffic' on our daily 'commute' to work each day in Iowa! Let's compare, shall we? First we have one of the major highways in Waterloo/Cedar Falls described as 'heavy traffic' at 8:00am. Second we have the major highway of Toronto described to have 'light volume' at 11:00pm. I think Iowa has won this round!
The remainder of our vacation included visits with lots of friends and family, gift exchanges, Christmas cookies, and lots of delicious food! We even watched Elf and It's A Wonderful Life to keep up with traditions and get into the Christmas spirit! The weather was unusually warm for this time of year, making our excursions quite enjoyable with just our Spring/Fall jackets! We gave some standard American gifts to our families, as well as received some wonderful Canadian gifts such as Tim Hortons mugs, Roots hot water bottle and sweaters, Canadian chocolate and candy, and Auntie Anne's famous nanaimo bars and Grandma's famous date squares! Yum! Andee and Trevor received some really neat Blue Jays themed gifts, including a hilarious ugly Christmas sweater featuring Josh Donaldson and Jose Bautista. Awesome. A wonderful Christmas was had by all!
All in all, despite some of the early on crazy, our vacation was a success. That being said, we are also quite content to be back to our warm apartment, normal sized bed, and regular routine in Iowa. Merry Christmas everyone, and have a wonderful New Year!