Framing context: a couple of weeks ago, my wife picked up a new toy for our daughter…a toy cash register. It’s a pretty neat little setup actually: it came with a few groceries and a pressure-sensitive scanner deck that beeps when you it something on it, and the register itself is also a calculator. It also came with a toy bank card, and there’s a little slot on the register that plays a beeping melody when you swipe the bank card through it.

So…this morning, as I’m leaving for work, Grace asks me to leave my debit card with her, just in case she decides to take in — and take our daughter to — some of the festivities happening in downtown Edmonton today.

Just after I do so, my daughter — who is, mind you, 21 months old — runs up and starts pointing at my wallet, saying:

“Yeah? Ella? Yeah?”

That’s her way of asking for things, you see; she wants a card from daddy’s wallet too, because Mommy got one. So I give her one of my points/membership cards from one of the national department store chains. Ella takes the card, grins, and makes a bee-line for her toy cash register. I arrive in the living room a minute later, to find her merrily swiping the card, laughing at the beeps.

I…worry I’m sending the wrong message here.

My wife just got back from her doctor’s appointment this morning with a glowing report, so I can now tell you all: this young Dragon and his Dragoness are expecting another wee drakelet. If all goes well and no complications arise, little Ella should have a little brother or sister by about mid-November.

Well, no, let me correct myself. She already does have a little brother or sister (we’re not going to find out which). But by mid-November, she’ll be able to kiss the baby proper, instead of Mommy’s tummy. Though to be fair, it’s pretty cute to see the baby vicariously, by way of kissing Grace‘s stomach.

It’s also cute when she tries to offer the baby a sip of her water. Just saying.

I’m tapping this out on the WordPress app for my iPod Touch whilst seated next to my baby girl in the back seat of the car. We’re on our way, the fam-jam and I, to see Grace’s parents in Vermilion for Christmas Eve dinner; weather permitting, we’ll be headed back to Edmonton for Christmas Day, to see my family.

Grace is driving, Ella is sleeping, and I’m thinking that it’s high time I posted an update to the site; that, and it’s time for my customary Christmas greeting.

In the past, I’ve subdivided greetings into categories (for fellow Catholics, fellow Christians, other believers, and non-believers), and if I weren’t typing on an iPod’s tiny keyboard, I might have opted to repeat that format this year. But as it is, I’m sitting in the back of a Chrysler Sebring tapping away on my iPod, so I think a more general greeting is warranted.

Whether, good reader, you are a believer or not, and whether you are a Christian or not, hopefully you can recognize that Christmas has a deeper and more powerful meaning that goes beyond the usual trappings of the season. Past the gifts, the trees, the feasts, past the rank commercialism and sappy TV specials, and even past the gatherings of family and friends, there is something deeper that infuses this time of year.

That thing is love, and in particular is a special kind of love, one that most certainly can be (and is) shared between friends (in good friendships) and family members (in functional families), but which can also be shared between complete strangers. it can even be shared in a way such that the recipient of it remains ignorant of it.

Christians will recognize what I’m talking about; this is the love that Christ exuded with every breath, word, and action, and then in no way more powerfully than by His death on the Cross. But that same love’s first act was the humble birth of a baby in a stable in Bethlehem. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

“Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” That humble birth was the first step on a road that lead inexorably to Calvary; the infant born that night was already bound, in His own small way, for the encounter with Pilate and then the Cross. But out of love, Jesus humbled Hinself to be born as one of us, for He desired to bring us a gift beyond any we might ever imagine receiving.

And that’s a gift offered to all of us. Granted, we don’t all — or always — see that gift. But even so, there it is, bestowed whether or not we are ignorant of it.

That’s the kind of love that infuses Christmastine; self-giving, humble, unexpactant love of others, and a desire for their betterment, even if only in some small way.

Now, before I turn this into a sermon, and before Ella wakes up, let me come to the point. It’s Christmas; to every reader, I wish a truly joyous Christmas and an earnest prayer that its days will be filled with the warmth and love of family and friends.

But I would also like to offer a challenge. We’ve all likely dropped some change in the Salvation Army collection bowl, or dropped a few cans of food off at a local food bank. My challenge, then, is: do even more, if at all you are able. Volunteer at a soup kitchen. Check a local shelter’s website to see if they need help with anything. Help hand out presents at a children’s hospital. Bake cookies and hand them out to street people downtown. Put aside aprehension, misgivings, and critiques for a while and just help someone, directly, in his or her immediate need.

In other words: love, to the maximum extent you are able. If you take no other meaning or message away from these days, take that much. And if you do take deeper meaning away from these days, you already know why I’m asking this.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Now go be excellent to each other.

Grace gave birth to a lovely baby girl, our daughter, Ella Rose, at 12:39 AM. It was a difficult labour for her, and she is still recuperating in hospital, but she should be coming home tomorrow…and overall, she’s doing very well. So very well, especially considering that she was awake for somewhere between 80 and 96 hours between the onset of early labour (back on Thursday) and some time this afternoon, when she finally managed to get some much-needed rest.

And as her husband, I have to say this much: I could not be prouder of her. I’m so proud of how she handled the circumstances that were thrust upon her during labour, and how she handled the fact that virtually nothing about the hospital stay went according to our hopes. And I’m so proud — and very much in awe — of the sheer determination, courage, and strength she displayed all through the delivery. It was clear, from her every word and act, that this wasn’t just a case of “I just want the baby to come out,” — she wanted to be a mother, to meet her daughter…not just be free of the pain and contractions.

Which, I think, is how it’s supposed to be.

And me? I wouldn’t have traded my place in all of this for the world. If there’s a way for a father to participate in a delivery more, I can’t think what it might be; I got to coach her through every push, and I was right there, providing counter-pressure to each effort she made. And I cannot find words to describe the feeling of seeing one’s child emerge into the world, that first moment where this little purple person almost leaps into the air and is quickly wrapped in a cloth by the doctors.

Grace is so beautiful, and little baby Ella is so very precious and dear. Though I’ve had many moments in my life when I’ve become aware of God’s plan, woven through the very fabric of creation, I’ve never found myself intersecting with it, or being so profoundly aware of it, in such a way as I am whenever I behold the two of them. A man such as myself does not deserve such good fortune as this.

I’m a dad. My wife is a mother. We have a daughter.

Oh, I cannot begin to describe the thankfulness I feel. And please, good Reader, do keep my wife in your prayers, that her healing may be complete, free from complication, and expedient.

Grace is about 15 weeks along now, and last Wednesday she had her monthly appointment with the doctor.

Very cool: while the doctor didn’t do a full-on ultrasound, she did use a little portable unit, and we got to hear the baby’s heartbeat, which was a healthy 148 beats/minute.

It’s one of the most incredible sounds you can hear, believe me. And to think that there’s a little one slowly but inexorably forming and growing there just below my wife’s stomach is…just wow. To say that I am so in awe of Grace, and to say that I am more than just grateful for her and this incredible thing that is taking place, would be a staggering understatement.

Grace and I landed safely at Edmonton International Airport later in the evening last Friday (the 2nd of November), ending off our ten-day honeymoon in Greece tired and more than a little glad to be back in North America, but still in awe of what was, for the most part, an enjoyable adventure abroad. Although it started out feeling more like a trip than a honeymoon, we slowed our pace down a bit and just enjoyed each others’ company for a few days…and it was great. I am truly blessed to have such a wonderful wife as she.

It was nice to just get away from all the hectic tedium of the wedding and post-wedding frenzy, and to be equally sure it was nice to just get away from the apartment for a day or ten. I had only moved my things over to Grace‘s a couple of days prior to the wedding itself, and hadn’t had time to unpack much. Add that to a considerable load of gifts* and it makes for one very messy, box-filled apartment indeed.

And really, I don’t think we could have picked a better place to escape to than the town on Crete that we ended up in. Hania is not exactly a “small town”, with a population somewhere between 57,000 and 70,000 depending on which source you consult, but the architecture has strong Venetian influences, and in the “off season” it has a slow, relaxed pace to it that we just drank in for all the days we were there.

So before we get to the news that’s happened in the last couple of weeks, let me just say that it’s great to finally be married to a girl whom I have loved so much for so many years now. I’m grateful that we had a blast in Greece and that we were able to travel in safety…but that gratitude cannot compare to the joy and praise that I feel in my heart at finally being able to see here there on the next pillow when I wake up in the morning.

And what an experience it was!

By some miracle, I managed to keep meticulous notes about each and every day of the experience, and so in the coming few days I’ll be converting my scribbled notes into full articles and posting them at Ubi, and at the wedding website. For the moment, it will have to suffice when I say that on the whole, this was one of the most amazing experiences, and one of the most incredible journeys, I have ever had or undertaken.

And I’ve got 1726 photos to show for it. Now, admittedly, I won’t be keeping all of those…but still, that number ought to give the reader a decent idea as to the magnitude of the Jamboree. Failing that, there are a few statistics attached to the Jamboree’s Wikipedia entry that may prove enlightening.

I also made many good friends, and I would even venture to say that in working with the people of ICCS — the International Catholic Conference of Scouting — defined for me at long last just what my Scouting career means to me, and demonstrated just how I want to conduct myself as a Scout, and what I want to work toward as a member of that world-wide organization.

I made a number of new friends, met some incredible people, tasted great English bitters and IPAs, attended Mass and Taize prayer with what was, for me, a heightened frequency, and worked with between 50 and 100 kids a day doing little things to help them learn (or learn more) about the Catholic faith. And in the off hours, I had some memorable times with some or all of the members of the 59th Rover Crew that were in attendance at the Jamboree.

I have to say, though, that the best part of the Jamboree was coming through the doors out of the customs area at the Edmonton International Airport and seeing Grace there. I had missed her so much during the trip, and seeing her smiling face across the arrivals area was the first breath of fresh air for this man when he finally made it home again.

Home. It’s strange, but over the course of the last three weeks, the very meaning of that word seems to have changed so much for me. Home is not, for me, the place where I’m currently living, the place I rest my head at the end of the day, or the place where my family is. Seeing Grace again, I knew at once that the sneaking suspicion of a feeling I’d been having all Jamboree was true: home is where she is. Home is with her.

And so, O Reader, on that note I will leave, and will tell you only that you ought to keep checking back — I’ve got the feeling that the next update to Aiera will be fairly substantial. There’s one new project I already am aware of, for example.