Merry Christmas (late) and happy holidays to all of you! As of yesterday, I have two weeks off from teaching, and I'm kinda laying low with my other work for a while. A chance to clean my office and maybe even create some new music.

I had a wonderful christmas with some of my extended family, along with "an embarrassment of riches" in the gift department (including some new CD's, the book "Lyrics by Sting", the complete Flying Circus and the complete 1st season of 30 Rock, both on DVD). I also landed a sweet deal on some expansion packs for my "groove" software (Stylus RMX), which I can't wait to play with, and maybe spark some new tunes for Cathy's and my next project together!

I gotta say, making a living doing what I love is such a blessing. Playing some of the most glorious music ever created for the Church with Cathy and her flute at my side is soooo fun. Christmas Eve at EBF was a little gift for me as she played some of my arrangements and the room filled with the sound of singing, worshipping people and some very excited little kids (including our own).

On Saturday, we played Christmas music for a local assisted living community. 15 or 20 beautiful people sat and listened as I played on a fairly trashed baby grand and Cathy played her flute and our kids just played. You can never have a more appreciative audience than you have in a place like that, where so many of the musical acts come and assume they want cowboy music or something like that. In fact, I think I found myself improvising better that morning than I have in a long, long time.

Yeah, some other gigs can be a drag, but I love this time of year. I hope we all can step back and reflect on how blessed we are here, and reflect on what this season is supposed to be about.

Eternity invading history and inviting us to join it.

Happy New Year!

n