The Christmas Blog

by David Dziegielewski, Operations Assistant

The Christmas holiday will soon be upon us. In this Blog I hope to share some thoughts and experiences about Christmas. I will try to keep it interesting with a bit of humor. Thank you for letting me share.

I can recall one childhood memory of a Christmas when I received a BB gun as a present. I can assure you that I did not shoot my eye out. However, I did consistently manage to spill BBs all over the house. I can be sure of this because I could hear them rattle as my Mom vacuumed the carpeting.

Yet another Christmas memory occurred when I was thirteen. My Father felt I had reached a responsible age at which to help him string Christmas lights outside of our house. I would hold the ladder as he would string the bulbs all along our rooftop gutter. I was so excited to plug in the cord and watch as the colors lighted up our house. To this day I am positive that our house had the best decorations of any on our street.

Christmas throughout my adult life was filled with yearly family visits and gift giving. I can recall that each year a different member of my family was picked to play Santa Claus and hand out presents. I am fairly certain that when my grandparents visited on Christmas that they never fully understood the song “Grandma got run over by a reindeer” as it sometime aired on the radio in our house.

I can recall one meaningful Christmas when I drove out to a rural farm after having visited my parents on Christmas Eve. The rural farm was deserted, and I chose to go for a walk in the clear, cold, and dark night. It must have been close to midnight when I looked up in the night sky to see all the stars. It was if someone had sprinkled salt over pitch-black paper. There were so many stars, but I strained to find the star that was brightest. It was then that I prayed while looking up at this star.

I have learned that Christmas is many things. It is a time of unity. A time to reconnect with family and friends. The spirit of Christmas is about hope. It is about joy and renewal. I feel it is about a prayer of peace for all in the coming year. In closing, I want you all to know how blessed I feel to have friends at APC.

Merry Christmas.