A Zookeeper

We invited a zookeeper to eat with us on Christmas Eve. A zookeeper. Every child's dream job. She was a real zookeeper.

The 7 o'clock Christmas Eve service at Marvin is always busting at the seams with people. My family happened to find seats squished shoulder to shoulder on the same pew as a mid-twenties-lookin' gal. Of course, it wasn't long before pleasantries grew into histories grew into number-ies and Gretchen was invited to dinner after the service. Gretchen. A zookeeper named Gretchen. Alone on Christmas, with her parents in England with her sister's family, in a new town, having just taken a job at the Caldwell Zoo, she accepted. And so our table grew from just our family of four (odd enough in its own right) to include an odd mix of grandparents, family friends, and Gretchen. A zookeeper.

That's what Christmas is about.