Christmas Day

We give each other fewer and fewer gifts each Christmas.  We like to call our little house here in Clear Creek Peace and Plenty, for we are blessed to have plenty in life, especially of the important things.  The gifts we do give each other seem to be more thoughtful, though - books, delicious little treats to eat.  And this year Martha surprised me with a new running duffel bag to replace the one I have had for decades, a torn and battered artifact of running 191 races.  I should have taken a photo of the old one beside the new one, but I so promptly stuffed the old one in the trash that no photo was taken.  I gave Martha (and myself) a new running log for 2020 - the same 3 X 6 weekly planners in which I have been recording my running activities for over 20 years and that Martha now uses, too.

 
And since I am confessing so completely my obsessive-compulsive recording-keeping behavior as a runner, I might as well admit that, in the back pages of my running log I keep a running total (hah!) of mileage for the year - a modest 511 so far this year, the fewest I have ever run.  And on the very back page I keep a record of overall mileage since I began keeping records in 1995, which will be a little over 30,500 miles by December 31.  That's a lot of miles!  And I have not regretted a single step.

We offered to prepare Christmas dinner for Martha's family again this year, and between putting the turkey in the oven and beginning to prepare the macaroni and cheese and the broccoli casserole (my own contributions to the feast), I realized I had an opportunity to run again, and that's what I did, down to the end of the road and back, more or less, another three miles entered ambitiously in the aforesaid running log.

Christmas dinner at Martha's Mom's house is always a little sad since her Dad passed away three years ago.  But we cherish those wonderful memories of him and all the others who have passed away.  And we have passed the Winter Solstice so that every day will be just a little bit brighter.  We will be looking forward to a New Year, with new destinations, new adventures, new discoveries.