Fun Stuff

I had a lot of fun yesterday at the office. Primarily because it was my last day there before the holiday and I got to give gifts, and this year seemed like a particularly good year for me as far as the thought behind them.

I gave Nathan a "Darth Tater." Nate's a big Star Wars fan, and the Mr. Potato Head with little pieces to put on his face that make him resemble Darth Vader was too good to pass up.

Steve-O got a "paper football" that is actually made of genuine leather football grain and had the Texas Tech logo...his favorite college football team. It came with it's own plastic yellow uprights, too.

Kristy got a book about the nature of the underground church. She just got back from a mission trip serving that very entity...so the fiction seemed appropriate.

Our staff is broken into two "teams" and each team has a pastor who serves us. Our "team" got our lead pastor something we knew he'd really enjoy but that isn't what made it a good gift...it was the timing and presentation of the it that was fun. It's fun to surprise people and see them genuinely appreciate the gesture.

Our entire staff went for the chip-in to get the senior pastor something we knew he'd like, too. He's been under the pile with lots to do this week...we're kicking off a sermon series that will require a lot of effort on January 8 and he's writing some booklet material for that and he's preaching five times on Saturday and then hosting a Christmas deal on Sunday...so he's been busy and giving him a gift that we knew he'd appreciate was fun, too.

Then, out of nowhere, one of our staffers came out of his office wearing a Santa outfit and another came out wearing an elf outfit...and he's like 6'3" and tights were involved. After a photo session, they were off to give gifts to a children's ministry in our area.

Then I stopped by to see one of my former teens who got engaged last weekend and I won't get to see her before my vacation. When I asked her if she'd been able to focus on finals and such, she told me she'd been so excited for the last week that she felt like a "human glow-stick."

Another teen was spending her last day of high school today. She's graduating early so she can take advantage of a unique missions opportunity and I wanted to congratulate her. She wasn't too burdened by the prospect of one last final today as she was about to go to dinner and a movie with her family.

Then I came home and my own daughter was off with her youth pastor and some friends to see King Kong. The other had one of her friends over and they were cutting up. Apparently, middle schoolers don't get too worked up over the prospect of one last final, either.

And, my wife was in a good mood, too. Wanted Chili's take-out for dinner and we had a gift card, so we rode together to pick it up.

Then Jude came by. He's house-sitting for us for the week, and he's looking forward to having a house to himself for a while. I mean, we're taking our pets with us so he's just getting a place to himself to hang out, so he was in a good mood, too.

Some days are simply fun...and yesterday was fun.

And...we're off to Alabama today at 1PM. Maybe the drive will be fun, too.