Merry Christmas 2016

Since the fam’lies

have all gone their ways

Except for the folks whose hair grays;

I declare with delight

That because of this plight

I am free from reports of those days

What I offer instead I have made us

Is a colorful map I have laid up

Where you match up the town

To which each has now flown

And from which

they occasionally raid us.

But beyond this map there is another

Showing where God became

our dear Brother

And was Bethlehem-born

on a mid-winter’s morn

To a lovely and low virgin mother.

There’s no arrow that points that direction

Nor a star any more for reflection

But a heavenly word

That proclaims him as Lord

And still offers eternal election.

God rest ye merry, this Christmas 2016 and always 
– the scattered Eckardt family

(in Moline, Ill., Oregon, Ill., Alexandria, Va., Warrensburg, Mo., 
Terre Haute, Ind., Pittsfield, Ill., and back home in Kewanee, Ill.)