DEBORAH CORRAO / L’Observateur / December 25, 1999

Here it is – Christmas Day! Next week we’ll be ushering in the year 2000. Evenwith all the hoopla about the new millennium, I’m still asking where 1999 has gone.

In our family it has been a year that has rollercoasted into December. It hasbeen a stressful one in many ways, but also a joyous one.

It was about this time last year I wrote my first column for L’Observateur. Iintroduced you to my granddaughter Carley, who started off 1999 quietly enough but it wasn’t long before she was competing at the gymnastics nationals in Phoenix this summer. Within a month or so of that I was making plans for mysurgery, and almost immediately after, my husband found out he would also have surgery in October.

As we recovered, we began once again to deal with the everyday routines of our lives, learning not to get in each other’s way. Our hospital stays helped us bothto give up smoking, a habit we’ve had for many years (and I want to report that we’re both still tobacco-free).

We watched our son graduate this December. And I started my new job the sameweek.

That adds up to a lot of stress, but the stress has been tempered with gratitude.

We are grateful that our family is once again healthy. We are also thankful thatwe have so many good friends and family members who helped out while our stitches healed.

1999 has taught us that God does indeed have a plan for each of our lives and that his plan may take us on paths we never dreamed we’d be traveling as we ushered in a new year last January.

The new millennium will not be magical for us – we’ll probably spend it very quietly, marveling that the God who came to earth for us more than 2000 years ago is still reaching out to us today.

To each of you, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Joyous New Year!

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