I'm sitting looking out the window at the ocean. No big deal for people in Bermuda, right?

We often find ourselves watching the ocean. Yet, this is not the same ocean. This is the Pacific Ocean, and it's raining and blowing very hard all over it.

The waves surge in a foaming, harsh and violent turbulent rotation of curling and crashing surf. The wind blows from the south, and as the waves begin to curl, it catches the top edge of them and whips several feet of spray in a mist that carries rapidly north.

We are in a large house with a full view of the beach up and down Lincoln City, Oregon. Outside, on the rail about three feet from the window is a huge gull we have named "Gullible".

He's staring in at me, waiting for his next ration of bread. The rain collects and then drips off his beak. We still have two carloads of people coming over the mountains to join us in time to celebrate Christmas.

Outside it is blustery and storming, and there is snow in the mountains. Inside, we're watching football, bundling up in blankets, sipping coffee, and feeling quite snug. The forecast for the general area is for snow on Christmas.

There is something quite mesmerising in being this high up on a hill that overlooks such an aggressive ocean. The waves emerge at a distance.

They build into rows that crest and break, then build, crest and break again and again as they close on the beach in a parade and dissipate in the foamy soup on the sand. Before we're through here, my wife and I will get rubber boots and walk on the cold, wet beach.

My 87-year-old father sits in a recliner watching the television. He wears the red and white Christmas cap my wife bought for him, and he's got a red comforter covering his legs. Looking into his eyes, eyes that are now a bit clouded with age, I listen to him ask me what the explosions were about.

"What explosions?" I ask.

He doesn't know what to say. He seems disoriented. At times he cannot remember my name. Sometimes he wonders where "everyone" is, but it's hard to know who he's thinking about, because he can start talking as if he still works for IBM and tell us about his old boss of over 30 years ago, but at the same time, he can't find the right words to express himself about what's happening right in front of him.

What he calls "explosions" could be any kind of pressure or noise, but what is evident is that the dementia I noticed in him a couple of years ago has progressed. At times he looks at me with a smile, and I wish I could have a conversation with him to find out what that's about.

Christmas this year is quite poignant. My mother died a little over a year ago. My father may not make it to another one. So, my brother and my sister, my wife, and my children will gather for Christmas this year, and we'll take a lot of pictures.

We'll enjoy being together, and if we catch ourselves staring out these wonderful windows at the mesmerising ocean, we'll reflect on the fact that it's the people in our lives that most often make life meaningful.

I imagine that this kind of event is taking place all over, wherever families are meeting to celebrate the holidays. Generations will be together at the same time.

People who were never born when television was invented, will try to relate to people who cannot grasp the fascination of holding what amounts to a television screen in one's hand and then using it to talk to one's friends or to send them a short and cryptic "letter" that does not require a stamp.

Just like the waves that roll in one after the other, the generations seem to be passing before me, and I'm very aware that I'm part of the parade.

The Bible says that children are a gift from God. Christmas celebrates the birth of the greatest such gift, not just a gift that increases some family's size, but one that has potential benefit for all families and all generations. So, from the Oregon coast, on a blustering winter day, and from one parade to another, we wish you the blessings for which Christmas was intended.