A Peaceful Christmas

Last night we had old friends over and had a Christmas Eve dinner and exchanged gifts. This morning my youngest daughter, 17 and my wife and I shared Christmas and the opening of gifts around the tree together. My daughter put on a fire (by Netflix) on our 60 inch flatscreen in the living room so we watched a fire (Yule Log Style) instead of building one because it already is too warm outside to build a fire. But, we did have a fire last night for our friends for Christmas Eve. My son Skyped from thousands of miles away with his girlfriend and soon to be wife and mother of his child (late spring or summer). Where they are it is very cold and rarely goes above 30 degree Fahrenheit now. My middle daughter, 24 stayed in Portland this year to have Christmas there and wound up getting a flu from the cold weather there as well. So, even though it was very cold a few weeks ago, even here on a northern California beach it feels a lot like Winter in Los Angeles or Santa Barbara right now, it's going to be in the mid 60 to 70s today. What a difference a few weeks makes. And for some reason everything is okay with the world for me. I feel the Peace of Christmas for some reason this year. I think most years I'm worried that I only have a few days with my older kids and it's hard to really enjoy them being here when they are going to be gone in just a few days. But, this year I'm not dealing with all that and somehow because of that I just feel the Peace of Christmas and I walk out onto my Redwood deck and sit in my hammock and all is right with the world. (At least for today).