Welp, just got my SDGE bill. My contribution to the holiday season decor by leaving my lights on from dark to 11pm for 3 weeks for the enjoyment of my family and neighbors cost me an extra $100 in electricity. I can’t imagine what it must be costing the people whose houses make it in the paper as “worth” going to check out. What does it cost that guy who makes it in the national news and starts setting up in October? Must be a load of benjamins. If I ran SDGE, I think I’d put an add in the paper telling people how to get to those houses that are on display and run some kind of contest to see who can do the best light job of those who didn’t do one last year. As it is, they must look to December with exceeding joy.

I wonder what my new gas fire pit will cost me this spring/summer?

Several hours ago I went to the Christmas Eve Church services at our church. My role is basically an attender at this thing now. Back in Fremont, I started an 11pm Christmas Eve service, which was our family tradition as a kid and my most anticipated service all year. It’s one of my favorite memories from my years there and one of the few things I started that they still do.

Anyway, for over a decade, my normal Christmas Eve consisted of preparing the final details on our service and showing up at like 9pm and finally leaving around 12:30am on Christmas Day. I loved that service and still miss it.. maybe that’s why it’s 12:30am on Christmas Day and I’m still up. I still miss being able to end the service by saying ending a prayer and saying, “Welcome to Christmas Day. God is with us.” Maybe someday I’ll start one here. But for now, our family roles have reversed.

I have the primary job of being Dad on Christmas Eve and have evidently started a new tradition of washing the car and buying the Cinnabon Sweet rolls for the next day. In the meantime, Shannon sings in all the services. This year my boys decided they wanted to go to their respective Sunday School classes for their Christmas shindig there. But, since their mom was singing, we also then all went to the service together to support her and sit as a family.

During the 4pm service, while my boys were in their classes, I read all the Christmas Cards that have been sent to our house. We just put them in a big basket. Shannon reads them as they come when she gets the mail. I wait until the end and read them like a book. It was fun to see old faces and to get caught up on people’s stories. I was so inspired by a friend of Shannon’s who went around the world on a “teaching ship” where she taught high school biology at sea and from port to port. How cool is that?! I also have some friends who took 6 weeks and went and toured the whole North East of the United States on a “home school teaching journey” where they saw all these sights and lived out of an RV… adventure is in the air. They reminded me of these family vacations I used to do as a kid for 2 weeks camping across the country. Shannon and I talked about it and decided that SUMMER 2009 is our goal for a month off and a HUGE road trip with our boys to go camping and sight seeing all around this side of the country. I’m EXCITED. How fun would that be? Better start planning and saving my pennies.

Anyway… when I got to service, I was blown away by the whole experience. What great music and dancing and video and teaching and celebration on Christmas Eve! I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The message was about at least 2 things that INSPIRE ME. The first is my favorite Bible topic… it’s POTENTIAL- the fact that God loves to use the undesirable to do the unthinkable. I love that about God. I love that he loves to use the underdog. I think God is inspiring to me because of that part of the Bible. We see it in stories of Mary, Jesus himself, Abraham, Moses, Paul, Matthew, David, Gideon, so many Bible characters. It’s a major theme of the Scripture.

The second is something I’ve been stewing on for a while. It’s the fact that the saddest part about living disconnected from God is not an “eternity without him”, it’s a present without him. Our pastor talked about it as missing the “wow” of life with God. That’s a bummer. That’s a bigger bummer than eternity without him. Obviously eternity is longer, but how sad is it to have 80 years on this planet and to spend them without Jesus? That was his message anyway. It was not, “Don’t follow me and you’ll rot in hell.” It was, follow me so you don’t miss the WOW of a life lived with me. Yes, there is a post death implication to the present decisions. But it’s the present ones that are more compelling to me and was the essence of Jesus’ message. Incidentally, for fun, if you’re looking for proof of this as a value, do a word study on the word “today” or “this day” (it’s the same Hebrew word in both cases) in the book of Deuteronomy. It’s used there more than any other book in the entire Bible. If you read all 74 verses in the ESV… you’ll see why Jesus quoted Deuteronomy more than any other book. It’s all about the call to a nation of Israel to embrace the covenant as a value for them TODAY… not a contract with God and their ancestors… not something for their children. NO, it’s for them today, and then and only then does the past have purpose and tomorrow have hope. Today is the day of salvation… because it is about TODAY.

I hope and pray that he uses all those who feel useless and that they embrace him Today….. that is the JOY of the gospel… that is the message of Christmas. That’s how I need to live everyday I have… embracing the journey and loving the process of a life lived connected to and enjoying the chasing of the God of all Wonder. That is a life of true adventure that will lead me through amazing times of serving, blessing, trial, and love. That is the life I yearn for and that Jesus embodies.

One thing our family loves during the Christmas time is to go see lights. We drive alternate routes home, we make a special trip to go see them around the area, we try and do our part to contribute to the festivities on our own home, and we go to special light displays we know about. This year we decided to use our annual passes and go try the lights at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. For years we’ve been going to the one at the Oakland Zoo to see their display, but that’s a little far now… so we decided to check this local zoo scene out at night.

We stated the tour by making hot chocolate in the parking lot to save some flow. Then we went straight for the 45 minute train ride around the main wilderness area. It was pitch black except for this spot light they shine around. At night a lot of the animals come up closer to the tracks. It’s kinda cool. Also, in case you were wondering… rabbits are evidently nocturnal. I think we saw 7000 of them- just running wild. We also saw lots of deer, some just from the wilderness around and standing in the way on the tracks. I also found out that Rhinos have sensitive feet and won’t walk on rocks… something to be aware of if you’re trying to get freed of them. Don’t climb a tree, just run into the nearest rock field.

The guy they have driving the train thing though is some guy from a country in Asia and he talks with the appropriate accent. Add to that bad humor and jokes with predictable puns and you have a live version of the safari boat ride at Disneyland minus the guaranteed crocodile sighting. I think they give the job to guys who really bad wanted to be stand up comics, but got sent back to the tour gig and couldn’t stand the thought of the Safari tour at Disneyland. My kids thought it was funny though.

We then went to go looking at the other sights to see. Kinda low on the light side. Mostly just a few things here an there along the paths and then lots and lots of various crafts to do. Our kids decorated cookies and then got their faces painted.

Here’s the photos. If you’re going to spend money on the Wild Animal Park though, I’d recommend going in the day instead.