There are two- well actually three- billboards in my community that I pass up fairly regularly on my way to class. I risked my life on the freeway to photograph them for you.

One is creative, fun, and comically out of place. It’s two billboards having a snowball fight. Click the picture below and it’ll get bigger and you can see for yourself. But anyway, I dig it. It makes me smile. Party because in some strange way it’s about coffee and partly because it’s in a place where last year on Christmas Eve my kids had a water fight while I washed the car because it was 94 degrees. Notice their throwball fight is over a palm tree 🙂

The second is someone’s idea of outreach I guess. I’m not sure what they are hoping for or why, but someone saw it fit to put some big sign up asking people if they are thinking about where they are driving theologically. This is moderately weird to me. It also presents God as a destination instead of a guide or a partner in life. I’d rather it said, “Choose wisely. No road is worth traveling without God.” But I’d really rather it said, “Merry Christmas. -Jesus”.

After 34 years, my Dad retired from serving the government. His job had some “secrecy” to it, so I never got to really be that close or that informed on the specifics of his work. I know generally what he did as an Engineer, but specifically- not so much. So when my mom asked me if I wanted to fly up last minute and surprise my Dad by going to his office retirement party at John’s Grill in San Francisco, I jumped at the opportunity to meet his peer group. It was great to hear people say what he was like in the office and to hear his reputation for doing his job well. I was so glad I went. Now both Shannon and I have one parent “free of a boss”. I’m looking forward to seeing God use my Dad as he wishes with no strings attached. How fun is that.

This year my wife wanted to buy a pre-lit tree in a box for our family. She has her reasons. No more dead trees. No having to take it down immediately after Christmas. Yatta Yatta…

But alas.. I protest. If I had my way, I’d pile the family in the car, drive to the woods,and Paul Bunyan hack the thing down myself. I’ve done this several times. It’s something we started doing when I was a kid. Then we stopped for a while and did it again once with my kids and my sister and her family in the snow covered mountains of Oregon. However, somewhere in there, Home Depot was invented.

So we don’t even go to a “tree lot” anymore. We go to Home Depot and pick one out that’s leaning up against a mountain of other trees. We settled early on in marriage on a compromise: I get my Noble Fir and shannon gets colored lights on the tree.

Anyway… last Saturday we made our trek to the land of all things pre-cut. Upon arrival, much to my surprise, we found that on the first Saturday of the month, Home Depot has a kid craft day in the parking lot. It’s free from 9-11am. My kids got a workman’s apron, a project pin, and a kit to make a box. They then lent us the tools and we had building and bonding time. All of a sudden- just like that- I’m a Home Depot fan. My kids loved it. I had fun. They had fun- and it was something we would not have done had I got to yell “timber!!!” in Oregon… though that would still trump this. Anyway, I put it on my calendar and now you know where I’ll be the first Saturday of the month. Bonding, Building, and toasting to the land of bulk home products and evidently- family crafts.

Good times and Merry Christmas. Here’s the HD project and the finished product of a decorated tree.