While I truly hope you all had as lovely a Christmas as I did, I cannot imagine that’s possible. My condolences.

It has been a stunningly wonderful holiday season. And not only was it all done with cash, we even paid down another thousand dollars of our debt.

At The Wife’s insistence we had a Christmas sinking fund and spent it on the kids; $100 each. That may not seem like much, but it was enough and generous grandparents from both sides of the aisle made for lots of love and plenty of presents to unwrap.

Ice-cold weather. Lots of good food, candies and baked things. All-day fires roaring in the fireplace. My parents visiting to enjoy their grandkids’ fifth Christmas. And me with all of last week off.

It was absolutely fantastic.

Yesterday was my thirty-eighth birthday. Before getting on the road to work I opened a card left behind by my dear folks. It had a generous cash gift; enough to take the whole family out for a fun lunch. So The Wife and Kids drove into town and we had a fabulous lunch together.

In a restaurant.

And none of us work there!

These are good moments, people.

Remember turning the Christmas lights off? Well, that played out too. The kids totally got it. We are getting out of debt and daddy sold the light controllers. No fuss. No complaints at all about the static lights I hung around the eves.

However, I was not prepared for the countless cars who stopped by only to leave disappointed. Several caught me with the garage open, rolled down their windows and asked where the light show was. I told the briefest version of our story I could. They all said how our show had become a tradition for them and one fellow offered to donate cash. It is ironic that I was the one bolstered by my kids’ easy acceptance when chatting with the crest fallen passers-by.

All of it, of course, strengthened and solidified our resolve to become debt-free. The best Christmas we’ve ever had full of joy, laughter and wonderful memories. I wouldn’t change a thing.

I hope you feel the same and wish you all a wonderful New Year.

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2009. | 9 comments