Christmastime is here

Good looking group.!

Been there, done that; the happiest time of my life by a long shot.

Hope you realize what you have, Rod.

Cute family! Enjoy the down time and the holiday season.

That. Is. Heartwarming. Cabin in Virginia with the family. Fire and wine. Kids TBA. Merry Christmas, Drehers.

Sometimes a picture is worth more than a thousand words. Sometimes a picture with about forty-nine words accompanying it can be worth even more than 3,800 words (cut down to 2,500); and an hour like this worth more than hundreds of hours at the office. As a couple of people have already said, Rod, you are blessed indeed; and I can't help but think that a bit of champagne offered with true and humble gratitude for hours like these is worth more to the spirit than reluctant asceticism.

(I am, of course, being light-hearted.)

Ahh, Eric, but when does "Saturday" begin for the Orthodox in terms of the katalysis? Sundown Friday, midnight, or Saturday at dawn?

(Lighthearted also--but a little curious!)

Just came back from seeing about sixty of my most intimate friends in a cocktail lounge.

We watched one of our favorite cheesy movies, "The Mummy Returns", while I sorted out misc. hair tangles from our two Aussies. No champagne, no fire, but nice and quiet.

NJ is going to get socked in this weekend, so aside from a neighborhood 'do, tis the weekend to get some Christmas cards and final year-end charitable contributions done/out of the way.

Aww, how sweet. I'm love fireplaces -- I so wish we had one! (Come to think of it, what's a fireplace doing in Texas, anyway? They should be mandatory here in the north, as far as I'm concerned!)

We are enjoying evenings lit by the tree lights. When Christmas gets a little closer, we'll have some low-key family time with home worship, reading the nativity story, sharing thoughts about the year, etc. I love this time of year. The Quaker tradition of not celebrating holidays (because every day should be sacred and holy) is one I've rejected personally. Yes, every day *should* be sacred, but we human beings aren't very good at acting that way. I'm grateful for seasonal traditions and rituals.

BTW, did your wife take that shot, or did you take it with a timer on the camera while she was busy shopping, wrapping, writing Christmas cards, baking, changing the baby's diaper, or any of the other million things she probably has to do this month? Not that I'm bitter about my lack of down-time or anything... ;o)

Seriously though, best wishes to your family for a lovely and very Merry Christmas!

Adorable! A blessed and wonderful Christmas to you and your family Rod, and a happy and prosperous New Year.

Beautiful family, Rod! Merry Christmas. My husband loves to build fires. We have a lot of them in the winter. Last night we took the kids to the YMCA and played some basketball and did a little swimming. I'm terrible at fasting. I only try to do it on Yom Kippur, and I really suck. I can't do it. I get headaches and grumpy. I really admire those who can manage it. Especially, those who don't even let the toothpaste and water for rinsing pass their mouth.

I'd love for a little snow right now. The weather reporters keep making promises, but we haven't seen any. I'm thinking that it might be just a trick to get you to stay up and watch the late news. All evening they'll do little ads about the bad weather to come with a full report at 11PM. Of course, the full report doesn't come until the end of the news, and then the weather's beautiful.

The other evening they closed the schools for outside scheduled activities because of the inclement weather that was to come. My son's basketball practice was canceled, and there was no inclement weather. Has anyone else been experiencing this? Do you think that the news stations are sacrificing reporting integrity to boost ratings by creating excitement?

Unfortunately I'm in Mumbai and don't get back to DFW until Christmas Eve, but there's a good Christmas vibe even here. The biggest Christmas tree in Mumbai is here at my hotel. There are vendors that come up to your car in traffic to sell chopped nuts and magazines, but this week they are selling Santa hats too. A couple of the local radio stations are even playing Christmas songs. I must've heard Elvis sing Blue Christmas five times this week. It's pretty cool - even India's got a bit of the Christmas spirit.

And my wife has taught our 18-month old to say "Ho Ho Ho!" on the phone when I call home. Can't wait to get back.

A nice long run along the perimeter, followed by some good Arab bread and Tahini. Wonderfully nice people (my mother not least among them) have sent us everything from books to stuffed bunnies (very soldierly) to cards to socks to snacks. We even have stockings and presents under a tree at the company - which First Sergeant is guarding from the curious 19 and 20 year olds. The Chapel is offering lots of good services, and by the time Christmas rolls around even our largely Muslim and Hindu kitchen service staff will be in the spirit - with often entertaining results. For example, at Thanksgiving they carved massive angels and hearts into ice, and made hundreds of little bread fish. :) Christmas Eve and Christmas Day traditionally the senior sergeants and officers take over most of the work, so we can hang out and relax. IF all goes as planned...

Christmas ain't so bad out here. A little strange, but it's simple. No commercialism, no greediness. And no ice storms or lake effect snow either! It's been 60 degrees by day, and we've hardly had any rain yet. All we could possibly desire in life is the one thing we can't have - the presence of our loved ones.

Rod, your boys are so adorable I want to scoop them up and give them smooches. So you'll have to do that for me. :) Enjoy the downtime - your kids need it, and so do you.

Everyone, keep in your prayers the young guys who WILL be out on patrols over the holidays. Things are looking up down south, but where we are at we've taken a lot of casualties. And pray also for the Christians of Iraq - they face a lot of persecution from Islamic militants and many will be living in fear this Christmas.

everything from books to stuffed bunnies (very soldierly)

Ah care packages, brings back fond memories of getting a big box (3'x3') of assorted candy and goods while in Basic. Thought drill sergeant would smoke me for hours. Gave me one night to make it all disappear...the platoon was happy.