Our First Noelle

This Christmas Eve brings memories of December 24, 2003. I had been waiting to hear from my agency about whether I had a singles slot -- whether I would be one of the lucky 45 out of 500 single applicants to be allowed to submit a dossier to adopt a baby sister for Zoe. By this point, I wasn't very hopeful. They were to let people know by mid-December, and I had not been contacted. Surely no news was bad news.

Then on Christmas Eve a rep. from my agency tracked me down at my parents' house in Tyler -- I had gotten one of the coveted slots!

So that explains the "Noelle" of the title -- not a gross misspelling, but Maya's middle name! She's the first Noelle in the family, the name a remembrance of a special Christmas. And as we sang "The First Noel" at Mass tonight, Maya Noelle BingLi knew the whole congregation was singing about her, not the baby boy in the manger!

I hope your Christmas makes you feel just as special!