&: Christmas Recap

Hope y'all had a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones! J and I enjoyed a relaxing two days in Nebraska with J's parents and little brother, though we missed J's sister who is a nurse and unfortunately had to work all week.

Our brief time on the ranch was full of visits with old family friends, feeding the cows, and a Christmas Eve service at Mullen United Methodist Church at which we lit the Advent candles and I read the Christmas story to the congregation. That was pretty fun, I'll admit. I can't remember the last time I participated in a church service instead of just sitting in the pews.

Christmas morning, we fed the cows, chickens, and cats before opening our presents. I still find Christmas exchanges to be a bit uncomfortable--the whole pretending to be happy/excited to receive material goods that I neither need nor want. (The Wu family, being the wholly unsentimental paragon of pragmatism that we are, trades cash.) I'm grateful for the sentiment of course, but wish there were a way to convince people to save their money and not buy me stuff. Anyway. Best gift I received? Lotto scratch offs from my brother-in-law. I won seven bucks and soothed the gamble-y itch that suffuses my Cantonese blood.

We ended our time on the ranch with a candlelit Christmas service at Dry Valley Church, a tiny church that sits in the middle of a pasture and has no electricity or running water. A few neighbor kids gave their annual piano performances, we all sang those favorite and familiar carols, and I accompanied J's dad on the piano while he sang "Joseph's Song." The latter went alright, in my book anyway, but we all know what a perfectionist I am. Still, it was a beautiful little gathering and a reminder of how much I miss rural, small town America.