Not a creature was stirring . . .

Merry Christmas from Tennessee.

Toddlers, in-laws, infants, Mommies, canines, and felines are all sleeping soundly while the wind rages outside. It is 1:00 in the morning. The sky is clear, the stars are bright, and the lights of the neighborhood below us are twinkling. Santa should have no problem finding his way tonight.

Santa has already visited us in Tennessee, and told us he has already visited Pennsylvania and Michigan and will be headed west to Texas next. Cookies and a glass of Cheerwine were consumed by Santa on his visit. This was my first time meeting Santa, (a privilege of being a father, no doubt). He's a great guy, with some surprisingly bawdy stories. Santa left Grandpa Spike and me a toy to assemble for Charlie Jo (he is outsourcing, now). It took us 3 solid hours to assemble. That is 6 manhours, and we weren't fooling around! Hard work being an elf.

Momma and I took Charlie Jo to the 6:00 Christmas Eve service at Epworth Methodist Church here in Franklin. Wonderful service. We did skip out at the homily, as we had been there an hour already and were concerned about Charlie Jo's attention span. We did not want to push our luck. Our little toddler wore her green Christmas dress and her hair in pigtails and charmed all she met. We sat in a pew full of Cannonwooders (the Andersons and the Perretts).

Peter had a busy day yesterday, what with all the eating and the sleeping, and the being awake and looking around. I can't believe he is going on 2 weeks old. What a beautiful kid.

Christmas, like Thanksgiving, is a good time to sit back and take stock. Our annual celebration of Christ's birth is a great time to think about who we are, who we would like to be, and what we would like to do as time rolls by. Niki and I are very thankful for our children, for each other, for our families, and for our friends. We are really lucky to have you and each other, and we know it. We hope that going forward, we can be as good as family members and friends to you as you are to us.

Merry Christmas.

The TN Stringers