Another Christmas has come and gone. It was a very enjoyable Christmas, despite the fact that it seemed like I drove all over town Christmas Day. Wait a minute….I did drive all over town. In all actuality, I drove and I rode…..let me explain. Christmas morning is when members of the CFAAA deliver the fixings for breakfast to all the fire stations in Oklahoma City. We deliver the groceries to the stations and let the firefighters decide when they want to cook. I adopted fire station #21 this year to deliver to, but as president of the CFAAA, it is my responsibility to make sure breakfast is taken to the 911 center and to fire station #1 (The CFAAA Board always takes care of 911 and station #1, since there are more people to buy for).
This year, myself and Gayla both went to make the deliveries…along with one other member of the CFAAA…and her husband. We rode with the member and her husband and made deliveries to 911, fire station #1, station #21, station #13 and station #28. Station #13 invited us to stay and eat with them, so we delivered to station #28 and then came back to station #13 and had breakfast with them. Afterwards, Gayla and I headed to my sister-in-law’s house to have Christmas with them. Normally, my immediate family has Christmas on Christmas morning, but since Gayla and I were delivering to the fire stations, we did not have time. We had Christmas at my SIL’s house, ate lunch and then headed home to have Christmas at home. Then, it was off to mom and dad’s house for Christmas. Needless to say, it made out to be a very long day.
One of my favorite parts of this Christmas season was Christmas Eve. Even though I had to work all day, when I did finally get off work, I went to a low-income neighborhood where firefighters from two different stations were delivering toys to children. It was great! Words can’t express how I felt when I saw these poor children receiving so many unexpected gifts from the firefighters. Their eyes lit up and their parents were in tears, standing in disbelief that someone would care enough to give toys to their children. The fire engines drove up and down the streets, sounding their siren and getting on their PA’s, announcing the free toys. I was in the very back of the convoy and I was running all my emergency lights as well. This lasted for a good two hours. There were so many toys to give away, that once the firefighters had finished giving toys to one neighborhood, they went to another low-income neighborhood and started giving out toys there as well.
Once they finished, I headed on home. Karla and I went to Midwest City to have Christmas Eve with my dad’s side of the family. Since it was Stephen’s birthday (yes, Christmas eve), Gayla had taken him to a movie, so neither she or Stephen made it to Midwest City. After spending some time with my dad’s side of the family, we headed back to the south side of town and spent the rest of Christmas Eve with Karla’s family.
Yesterday was a rest and relaxing kind of day. We had church services at 10:15 am and then went home. There were no services planned for the evening, so I had lunch, watched some football and napped. That was all I did all afternoon. Yesterday evening, I met up with some of my REACT team members at Pearls and they ate seafood, while I ate a burger. I am not much for seafood, but I wanted to spend time with my buddies.
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