Our newest ornament

We have a new ornament on our tree now. It is a picture of my friend Brian. Why exactly you might ask? Well let's just say it seems like it was my 25th choice. Not that I don't love Brian and am thrilled to have his picture (in a stylish suit coat and all), it is just that it wasn't my first choice (or second or third or...). We had an ornament exchange for our Sunday school class this weekend with dirty Santa rules. For those of you who might not know what that means, it means that when it is your turn to pick you can open a new gift bag or steal from someone else if you like theirs better. After a couple of times being stolen the ornament is then frozen and can no longer be taken. Well it turns out that whatever ornament I picked tended to be the one everyone else wanted. So I got to open way more gifts than everyone else, but also ended up with the picture of Brian on the second to last pick. Amazingly the last person to pick didn't want it or as a matter of fact neither did his wife. (Some lame excuse on her part about already having the picture available on her computer to begin with. Weak excuse if you ask me.) The party was fun and more importantly it is a good reminder that we are part of an awesome community of friends (strange definitely, but also awesome. Matter of fact, I am now waiting on a picture of Lane to balance out the tree. I figure it they can give me such strange and unusual gifts for my birthday then they deserve a prominent place on our tree as well.) A huge part of community and doing life together is having fun. I love the fun we have with our core friends. I also know that if I needed one of them at 4 a.m. that they would be there as well. That is doing life together for me. The incredibly fun times as well as those moments on the other end of the spectrum. I feel so incredibly fortunate to have that type of community with our friends. The thing is that it doesn't happen by accident. It takes reaching out and investing in other people's lives - the good parts and the hard parts. If you don't have that community with some people right now, start the process and find some people to start living it out with. Trust me you won't regret it. You may end up with some strange ornaments, but also some incredible friendships.