Nearly Christmas thoughts

So what's going on?
I, for one, am glad to be in a country where it's OK to say "Merry Christmas." I won't get sued by the ACLU or fired by my company if I do. In fact, most people won't even understand me!
Well, so this week Aubrey has returned to work and she feels pretty good now.
We went out last night and got a plastic Christmas tree which has fiber optic lights on it and cycles through a cavalcade of colors, so we like it pretty well. We're gonna take the Christmas lights from our back patio and hang them inside our living room today and put out other Christmas decorations to complete the ensemble.
Kaki has left Oklahoma, carrying a suitcase full of goodies for us. Among said goodies are gluten-free cereal bars and gluten-free cereal (both for Aubrey), some long-sleeve shirts (since we don't have lots of cold-weather clothing), some Chee-tohs (for me), some Heath bars (b/c we miss them), and some other requested items. When she arrives, it will be total Christmas. Too bad she won't come until 29 Dec, but that's OK - at least she's coming! She'll be in Hong Kong for 3 weeks, so pray for her time w/ her family - only her little brother is a believer.
Last night, Aubrey was w/ a friend for Japanese tutoring, so I decided I'd go to my favorite restaurant for one of my favorite dishes (it's called "okoge" and it's to die for) and read a good book for a while. While reading, an acquaintance came out of a party room behind me and we talked for a while. I tried to explain the topic of my book (which is J Budziszewski's What We Can't Not Know, on natural law), but that proved pretty tough. Don't know if he caught it or not. Anywho, he asked if I wanted to join his party for awhile, so I said sure. Afterwards, everyone had gone on to their next destination (some kind of nightclub, I imagine) but Deki stayed there and we talked for a long time about Baby Sora, which led to the peace we have about her passing, which led to the Gospel. So we praise God for this divine appointment! We pray that he will take up the challenge to ask God if He is real that I laid before him.

Finally, we have been extended an invitation to join friends from a Baptist church in Okinawa to join them for Christmastime. We're pretty excited about it and are pretty sure we'll take them up on the offer. We'll have to take the ferry down there, which will be fairly long, but overall it should be OK as long as we eat light and take our seasick medication. And hopefully the weather will be nice so the boat won't rock UP UP UP UP UP and DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN all the time. Fortunately, the ship to Okinawa is 8000 tons, whereas the one between here and Naze (Amamioshima) is only 3000 tons. I think the larger size makes the boat substantially more stable. Cruise liners don't have very much rocking motion, I don't think, or at least not usually. That's b/c they're so big.
Bye!