The stockings are down, the ornaments are in boxes, the tree is packed back up. The Moravian star is even down in the basement.

It’s not even 1PM on Christmas day and our house is sans-decoration.

It’s kinda sad, really, but with our next few days’ schedule we didn’t have much of a choice.

Full day of packing and readying for our trip tomorrow. We hit the road bright-and-early Thursday morning with four of our studnents, a 12-passenger van, a baby and a week’s worth of luggage for a ‘road-trip-and-a-half’ to Orlando, Florida for the Wesleyan Youth Convention, SetApart ’07.

Can’t wait!

Christmas-lyrics dance around in my noggin this evening as a mixture of egg-nog, boneless buffalo wings, and cheese curds keep me awake at this hour realizing that Christmas is here and will be ‘over’ much quicker than it came.

As we tucked Ella into her crib tonight a few hours before Christmas it was fitting to realize the gift we’ve been given – our daughter allows us much-more insight into the gift God gave us in his Son, Jesus.

From our family to yours we wish you – the readership of stevansheets.com – a Very Merry Christmas!

PS – What Christmas lyrics are stuck in your head?

In attempting to reach my goal of reading 12-books a year, here’s this year’s current list:

01. “Jim & Casper Go To Church” by Jim Henderson
02. “Quiet Strength, a Memoir” by Tony Dungee
03. “When Necessary Use Words” by Mike Pilavachi
04. “You Converted Me” by Tony Jones
05. “I Sold My Soul on eBay” by Hemant Mehta
06. “A.K.A. LOST” by Jim Henderson
07. “Little Family, Big Values” by The Roloff Family & Tracy Sumner
08. “Frequently Avoided Questions: An Uncensored Dialogue on Faith” by Chuck Smith Jr. and Matt Whitlock
09. “In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day” by Mark Batterson
10. “Walking the Trail of Death” by Keith Drury
11. “The Deity Formerly Known as God” by Jarrett Stevens

If I add-in reading “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” nearly a million times along with countless other children’s books, I think I’ve achieved my goal of 12-a-year.

In all seriousness, though, I need to attempt to read at least one more book in the next week-and-a-half. Any suggestions?

Thanks to one of my students – Rudy, I have FINALLY (after 5-months of living here) tasted Wisconsin’s (the worlds’?) BEST root beer!

In between sentences I am quietly sipping my bottle of Sprecher’s Root Beer and loving every sweet drop. I had been told even before moving here that Wisconsin was famous for this brew. Now I finally understand the hype.

I want another one.