Lucas Camilo

In turns out our neighborhood is big on the holiday spirit – nearly every house on our side of the block has some sort of colorful outdoor lights display.  For the last week and a half Lucas has asked that we go outside to “watch the Christmas lights,” and if we linger too long on one display then he’ll implore us to “keep walking.”  As long as it’s not raining we’ll wander up and down the street checking out the lights and asking him “aren’t those light pretty?”  And he’ll answer with a devious smile, “ugly!”  Krista got some outdoor lights from her mom and now we also have a big display outside our house, though Lucas thinks it’s ugly too…

Last weekend we finally went and picked up our  Christmas tree with Lucas.  The organization El Centro de la Raza has their annual holiday tree sale fundraiser not far from where we live and we spent some time looking around in order to find “the perfect tree.”  It’s the first time we’ve had a tree larger than 3 1/2 feet since Lucas was born (our basement apartment in DC couldn’t handle much more.)  It looks pretty nice in the corner of our house.

On Monday we fired up the colorful lights and hung ornaments on the tree.  Lucas loved it all.  It’s funny how certain holiday traditions that we did with our families growing up continue, even if we told ourselves at one point in our life that we’d never get into the same hokey stuff that our parents did.  As our friend Tom wrote about his son Benny, “it is easy to get cynical about Christmas, but watching his excitement has made it a fun holiday for me again.” 

One holiday tradition we’ve also incorporated into our lives – though not yet with Lucas – is sitting down each year to write checks to some of the many amazing organizations that are working to make the world a better place.  This year, in addition to our usual social justice/anti-war/international solidarity/immigrant rights/local grassroots groups, we also incorporated a number of groups focused on disability justice, disability rights, and research on myotubular myopathy, the disease that Lucas has.  If anyone is curious, we’re happy to share a list of some of the groups we support.