January 2

Good morning to each of you from Puerto Rico at its finest. This is the bay of Aguadilla where we live. Okay, enough torture 😊!

Well the holidays are over for you. We still have two weeks to go. In reality, after Three Kings' Day we put the decorations away. Speaking of the three magi, we have a tradition in our church to have three men dress in kingly regalia and give gifts to the children at church. It is always a happy occasion. However, with New Year's Day falling on Sunday, the church attendance was way down. So, after church Mary and I made a few stops to take the gifts to some of the church kids. Smiles magically appeared on their faces.


From December 11 through last Sunday the church had special events galore. December 11 brought in a musical group who did a beautiful job playing traditional Puerto Rican Christmas music. Little did I know that this group, with a total of forty others, would arrive unannounced at our home three days later to give us a "parranda" (Christmas caroling). They brought the food, drink, music and joy. It is good to be loved and have friends.

December 18th four of us performed a couple of dramas I had written for the occasion. The characters were Mary and Elizabeth as well as John the Baptist and his father, Zachariah. No eggs were thrown! Afterwards, we had a Christmas dinner to complete the day. The attendance was good, over one-hundred.


Finally, the 30th, the church roasted a pig on the church grounds. We enjoyed more Christmas music. Around a campfire a guest speaker brought us words of encouragement and then we shared in a group activity. We finished up around 10:30 PM. Mary said we had fifty-four show up on a beautiful but windy and cool night. What a way to end the year.

Yesterday we started the year with a guest speaker who spoke on the new year's theme, "Together we are Better".

Well, that catches the highlights. Mary and I hope you enjoyed Christmas. We certainly did!