(I wrote the following for my wife as her Christmas card this year. She granted permission to share it.)

“The time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come from and where we are going to, for sifting through the things we have done and the things we have left undone for a clue to who we are and who, for better or worse, we are becoming.” ~ Frederick Buechner

I cross the threshold into Christmas Day by reflecting on the attributes of my wife and the wonder of being married to her. Space allows the mention of only a few of the things about her that highlight the blessing that she is. She cares for birds the way most people do their children. I call them “her birds”, implying ownership when the last thing she would want is to own any one of them. We stop regularly at feed stores and hardware stores seeking out the finest seeds available for her occasional visitors, and a new feeder design turns her head every time. My wife knows why the caged bird sings.

She sits through entire baseball games and opts for football when push comes to shove and choices come down to sitcom or pigskin. Although she had never seen a soccer match before meeting me, she now heralds the return of the World Cup like a veteran aficionado, and cheers for every African team (as do I) as well as Team USA. She’s an American girl and does her country and gender proud by reading politics and speaking shrewdly on the perils of bankrupting democracy. Following one particularly engaging discourse last week, I looked at her so intently across the couch that she asked what was wrong. All I could do was swallow hard to keep from exposing myself as a hopeless sap, and choked out something like, “Wow, beautiful and intelligent to boot. All these years later, I still can’t believe you said ‘Yes’ to the likes of me.”

God the Father knew what he was doing when he hatched the plan for his sons and daughters to find one another and, in so doing, find themselves. God’s Christmas blessing to me this year and for the past eight years is Jo, his greatest gift to me outside of Christ.

Merry Christmas Jo!
I love you