Post Christmas Musings

Now that Christmas has come and gone and we are awaiting the New Year I thought I would just include a number of thoughts for your enjoyment:

Holiday songs you have probably never sung:

I'm Glad I Had A Hot Christmas (Tune: I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas)

I'm glad I had a hot Christmas

Without the cold and dreary snow

Where children are coughing

And not ever stopping

Because they've played out in the cold.

I'm glad I had a hot Christmas

And should you like to have one, dear,

Leave behind the cold that's so drear

And come and visit us next year.

What Do You Do With A Broken Toyota? (Tune: What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor?)

What do you do with a broken Toyota?

What do you do with a broken Toyota?

What do you do with a broken Toyota?

Call the mechanic in the morning.

Chorus:

High, high up the bill rises,

High, high up the bill rises,

High, high up the bill rises,

Pay the mechanic in the morning.

Radiator leaks, getting hot all over (3x)

Call the mechanic in the morning.

Chorus

Fuel pump broke, so the motor won't go on (3x)

Call the mechanic in the morning.

Chorus

A/C quit, only makes it hotter (3x)

Call the mechanic in the morning.

Chorus

(Other verses maybe added by simply substituting whatever car part in the lines.)

Trivia question: Which Christmas Carol is the "Bolivian Carol" - Angels We Have Heard On High, Angels From The Realms Of Glory, or Hark! The Herald Angels Sing?

Answer: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing - Second verse, Late in time, behold him come!

What are your New Year traditions? Here are a few Bolivian customs:

Want to travel next year? Take a walk around the block at midnight with an empty suitcase in your hand. Eating 12 grapes right at midnight will bring you good luck for the next 12 months. Counting some bills from your wallet as the new year strikes will bring you wealth. It is also lucky to be showering as the new year begins. And finally, pay attention to the color of your underwear. Red will bring love and passion into your live. Yellow is for happiness and money. Green will bring prosperity. If you want more friends wear pink. White will give you hope. Want a new wardrobe for the coming year? Wear your underwear backwards New Year's Eve or wear new clothes to the party. While all this will happen if you buy the underwear you are wearing, the results will be even greater if the underwear you are wearing was given to you as a gift.

On a more serious note, I hope you all had a blessed Christmas celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus and the fact that God became man for our salvation. Have a great New Year as you follow him into 2010.

"Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings, These are a few of my favorite things . . ."

No offense meant to Julie Andrews, Rogers and Hammerstein or María van Trapp, but wild geese that fly may be one of their favorite things but I find nothing favorable about wild goose chases myself. Today, for instance. I had a fairly defined list of what I needed to do, in order.

1. Go to the seamstress and turn in torn pants while picking up repaired skirt. Maybe can fix pants while waiting.

2. Take car to mechanic (again) because air conditioning still not working after paying for repair.

3. Go to print shop to pick up evangelism booklets that are ready as of almost a week ago.

4. Take electric drill to repair shop.

5. Buy peanut butter.

6. Go to lawyer's office and pick up tax certificate.

Here's how the morning went.

1. Leave torn pants but don't pick up skirt because skirt not done yet. Come back tomorrow.

2. Air conditioning working today so no use to go to mechanic. Try again tomorrow.

3. After paying don't pick up booklets because they are not ready yet. Come back tomorrow.

4. Don't leave drill at repair shop as they no longer do the work there. Take to other location tomorrow.

5. Buy peanut butter. (Some small things go right once in a while.)

6. Lawyer's phone rings busy but no one in office. Go back tomorrow.

So you get the picture. One out of six ain't bad. Some days it might not even be that good.

I usually am not one to wax poetic about such matters. Nor am I prone to find deep spiritual truths in all of life's petty problems but one thought came to me (surprise) as I was coming home from my wild goose chase. Isn't it good that God goes on wild goose chases? Maybe I should say sheep chases.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)

Merry Christmas.

ps: I cannot figure out how to put captions on my pictures so here is the caption for the photo attached with this article. "I don't have a picture of wild geese or sheep so this cow outside our church will have to do."

The Rest of the Story:

So I went back this afternoon to try to get the drill turned in to the repair shop. All well and good. But on the way home the car died again. Fortunately it was only a couple of blocks from the mechanic. The diagnosis: fuel pump.