Today, I am at the beginning of a week of stay-cation. I'll try to get a few things done around the house. We'll see how that goes.
I have New Year's Eve plans. I'm going to stay home and read, watch a movie, or knit, or some combination of those. I bought myself a little bottle of champagne to open at midnight, and I plan to buy some oliebollen, the traditional Dutch New Year treat. My kind of party. My dog will be there.
When my folks were living, I spent New Year's Eve with them. One year, they got out the Church Yearbook, which is an annually published book of statistics about churches in my denomination, the Christian Reformed Church in North America. My dad would think of the names of his seminary classmates (Calvin Theological Seminary), and my mom would look them up and read out what congregations they had served. I was like, "Whoa. Is this the wildest New Year's Eve party ever, or what?" After that, it became a family joke. As December 31st approached, my sister would warn me not to get too crazy with the Church Yearbook. I would reply that I couldn't restrain our parents if they wanted to get that rowdy.
One year, my pastor had mentioned that his family, like so many families, would read Psalm 90 at the new year, so I suggested that to my dad. He turned down the idea because he knew the Psalm had all kinds of things in it about the brevity of human life. My dad did not care for reminders of his own mortality. He didn't like it when my mom would say to one of us kids about some household item, "You can have this when I'm dead." It didn't bother my mom or me. We would kind of laugh about it and pantomime and mouth those kinds of remarks to each other so Dad didn't have to hear them.
Well, rest in peace, Dad and Mom. Some day we will celebrate together not just the New Year but the New Creation. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
