Christmas Blues and Cheer

On December 16th, Noah's father passed away. It was so soon after his heart surgery, it left us in a state of confusion. I've been very sick with an ear infection followed by the flu, so it's been very difficult dealing with everything going on - yet - in spite of how badly things have been going, we've been wrapping gifts for Santa. We're lucky to have a 12 year old that still beleives in Santa Claus - even if it means we don't get the credit for his having received his gifts. I love the whole innocence about it. My little philosophy about it is that you only get to be a child for so long and as soon as that innocence is gone... it's gone forever. I want him to hold on to it for as long as he can, because you can never go back and be a child again... be childlike, yes... but you only get one childhood. In the meantime, we still go over ideas for upcoming Ruler of Hartz episodes and we write notes all the time. Our goal is not perfection; we're not trying to compete with the more extremely talented people who are producing extraordinary and highly entertaining video's. We love watching them. However, we are a family who are finding a common thing that is allowing us to spend more time together - laughing at our flubbed lines, at times for much too long - and finding a satisfaction that in spending time together we have created something hopefully funny and entertaining for others to watch. Watching zipster's holiday video's and loco mama's has really helped us find a bit of laughter at a time when it should be cheerful in spite of everything that isn't and we consider that a blessing. It gives us hope that we'll get past the blues and hopefully will have the merriest Christmas.