My Christmas Day

I had a wonderful Christmas day, mostly.  I went at noon to my favorite gourmet pizzeria for lunch, hoping somebody amongst the families of my three children, all adults now, would finally mature enough as human beings to put aside their induced hatreds from the bitter divorce two decades ago that their mother fully and purposefully enmeshed them in as tender, immature children, but no such luck there.

I returned home and went for a short run on the beautiful, clear day, reflecting on my blessings that I had at least been enabled by the good Lord to be able to provide safety and shelter and support and coaching (both figuratively and literally) and means and guidance and love and full, free education through college to each my three sons until each reached maturity and later forgiveness, and that I had and have always been there for them as a father and a man.  I then packed up my Christmas tree which I had set up on my covered side porch and drove it over to a friend's house where I spent the remainder of the daylight hours in the true spirit of the holiday, sharing it with a loved one.

We trimmed the tree at her house and it looked pretty Christmasy when we were done.  We exchanged a few gifts and opened presents.

I cooked a sumptuous brunch and we enjoyed each other's company listening to carols and discussing the prospects of an even better year in the offing, especially for our mortally threatened country, imperiled stunningly and perniciously from domestic enemies acting either through reckless ignorance or self-aggrandizing, rapacious malice.  Then because my vision has been compromised at least temporarily due to my year of successive eye surgeries during the past year which makes it more difficult to drive at night, we packed up my car and I returned home before the gathering gloom at day's end turned into fully enveloping darkness.

Merry Christmas 2019

Merry Christmas to all.  The most beautiful tree I came across this year on my annual Holiday Lights run is the Library of Congress tree.

Season's Greetings from my house to yours, especially to my long-estranged children.  Today I'll stop by Westover to see if those bad boys of mine have finally gotten over their brainwashing during the divorce by their mother and her cadre of wicked, well, evil courthouse riff-raff like Meg (who is still destroying other families with cold aplomb), charlatan Victor, scumbag Joe, unethical or worse Bill, and all the other divorce lawyers (spots reserved for y'all on the lowest rung of hell) and mental health "professionals" who, as mature mercenary adults, knowingly helped to murder the childhoods of my children at their oh-so tender ages back then, scarring them for life.

The National Tree from a few years ago.  I led a group of runners out at noon from work to run by it.

The National Tree this year.  Here's to a better next year, when we can start restoring America's greatness after three years of wallowing in the sewer due to ignorance, myopia, perceived victimhood and desperate false hope leading to blind unthinking cult worship.

Christmas 2018

Christmas this year was a very wonderful day, to add some cheer to an otherwise very difficult year.  It started with fruitless stop to pick up fresh bagels at my local bagel shop--I should have known it would be closed!  As I proceeded to my friend's house to celebrate the day, I stopped to wish a Merry Christmas to my friend Treavor at his workplace on the corner of Highway 29 and I-66 and I stopped briefly as the noon hour approached at my local pizzeria, but I didn't recognize anyone who was around.

Bloody Marys made with a succulent mix and celery and horse radish made up for the absence of bagels, and then we had stuffed omelettes and ginger cookies to cap off the meal.  Because of the weight-limitation imposed upon me because of my recent surgery of five pounds, I didn't bring over to my friend's house my five-foot artificial tree to trim, rather we made do with a lightweight plastic snowman as a tree this year.  We opened our gifts, reflected upon our ties to other loved ones with phone calls and thoughts, and enjoyed holiday cheer for awhile by watching the puppy channel and dancing to Chuck Berry on the jukebox.

Before dark, we drove back to my house so I could drop off my car before darkness, because of my nighttime driving limitation for now, and as we drove around my neighborhood, we were amazed to see an owl with a 5-foot wingspan fly right past the windshield before it perched nearby on a fence where we watched it for awhile as it occasionally rotated its head around to see us; I have never seen so large an owl before.  Then we went to the teeming Eden Center in Falls Church and walked around its grocery stores where we marveled at the mostly Asian products offered there, two-feet tall thick carrots, long-neck clams with necks protruding eight inches out of the clamshell, lemon grass with chili peppers, and coffee laced with chicory, a New Orleans treat which I haven't seen in my supermarkets for decades and which I enjoy very much; I bought a can.

We capped off the wonderful day with a dinner of Indian fare at the Haandi's in Falls Church, where we split a bottle of its signature beer, a Taj Mahal IPA.  I received some wonderful, thoughtful gifts this holiday season, the Ken Burns PBS documentary The Vietnam War, a graphic bound comic book on the Warren Commission Report on the JFK assassination, two bottles of whiskey barrel aged especial beers, a handsome flannel work shirt, a bottle of Argentinian wine and a pound bar of Belgium chocolate.  Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

A Christmas Greeting

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Happy New Year.

I wish peace on Earth.

And for our endangered Republic to be saved by true patriots like Mueller and Pelosi and their kind.

And for a long and healthy life to each of my three children.

A Merry Christmas

The winds were ferocious on Christmas Eve and overnight.  It blew down the Christmas Tree I had set up on my covered porch, trying something different this year, and the tree lay in a distressed heap on the driveway in the morning.

Time for a re-boot.  I brought the tree inside, untangled the garlands and trimmed it.  It came out okay.

Christmas breakfast was a treat.  Lox and bagels, loaded further with cream cheese, capers, onion, cheese and brown tomatoes from Mexico.

It was so filling that although it was cold, a walk was called for and a wonderful, packed North Pole on 14th Street in the District was discovered.  A Merry Christmas was had by all.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all.

Here are hopes for a happy and better New Year.

There's a lot to be thankful for, like family and friends.

Life is too short not to forgive.

Xmas Trees

Before I was forced to involuntarily retire due to pernicious ageism discrimination at my agency fostered by the new breed of managers there, ambitious, callow persons all a full generation younger than me who only saw their own advancement as paramount, I used to lead an annual Christmas tree run around the Mall that took in as many holiday decorations as we could run by and that stopped briefly at some to admire them. Because of the current cultural wars climate, where the true description of what you're doing can't be hurtful to somebody somewhere, we called it the holiday lights run.  (Union Station tree.)

The organized noontime running club at my division within the agency has fallen into disuse since I left last year via forced retirement, so no more happy, fit workers returning to their desks in the afternoon ready to put in a full closing flourish to their workday. But I went into the District this week to go by my personal favorite spots to view Christmas trees for my own gratification. (Canadian Embassy tree.)

I didn't see all my favorite spots but I did the best I could in the limited time I had downtown before new toll-road considerations, based upon expansive and expensive rush-hour electronically monitored charging via a windshield transponder, kicked in to make my transport prohibitively costly, basically surge pricing called dynamic flow that allows for only a few free hours of use midday of the main traffic artery into DC, which severely restricted my ambulation downtown. I saw old and new favorite examples of Christmas trees like the National tree, the Capitol tree, and trees at the Willard Hotel, the Trump Hotel, Union Station, the Peace Officer Memorial, the Navy Memorial and the Canadian Embassy. (Willard Hotel tree.)

I didn't get to the Botanical Garden tree or other pretty trees that I know of but my circuit, for as rushed as it was, was pretty comprehensive.  I'm so currently out of shape due to lingering injuries that it was an exhausting, but fulfilling, journey largely by Capital Bike Share. (The National tree.)

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night

I had a wonderful Christmas, thanks to friends and family.  It really started on Christmas eve, when I was invited to a Hanukkah party at a friend's house and spent a few hours watching four children, two dogs and a dozen adult family members and other loved ones of my friend cooking, eating, drinking a little, talking, giving gifts to the children and relaxing in a seemingly chaotic scene.

On Christmas day at around noon I went to the local restaurant nearby where I always go on holidays and birthdays for lunch in the vain hope that one of my prodigal sons would show up to begin our first day of the rest of our lives.  It was closed for Christmas and no Lambertons or Rogers were around.  None came the morning before at the bagel place in town either, where I'd invited them, so I guess they all still are advocates of patricide, even as fully mature adults, as inculcated in them as tender children by their covertly narcissistic (in my opinion) mother and her coterie of "professionals."

I then went to a friend's house where we set up and trimmed a tree and enjoyed Christmas day with food and talk and the exchange of presents.  I received some lovely gifts including a warm down throw, a book on tape and other thoughtful gifts from my friend, siblings and a neighbor.

The day done, gone the sun, we took down the tree and I returned home to an empty house.  I am hopeful that the coming year will be a good one although this past year contained several shocking events such as my sudden (forced) retirement, finding out I had a daughter-in-law a year after the advent, being friended and then unfriended on FB by the same personage on the day before long-scheduled surgery, surgery and the election shocker.  Whoo boy, what's up for 2017?

Merry Christmas

Christmas Trees from times past

Christmas trees are certainly a ubiquitous item at this time of the year.  Here are some times past.  The Peace Officers Tree in DC from a few days ago.

Helping to decorate a tree last year.

A tree in Orlando from several years ago.

The Capitol Tree in 2008.

The Capitol Tree in 2014.

Helping to decorate a tree in 2014.

The Peace Officers Tree in 2012.

The Peace Officers Tree in 2007.

Last year's National Tree.

This year's National Tree.

The National Tree from 2014.

Children watching the train set at the bottom of the National Tree.

The National Tree in 2012.

The National Tree in 2007.

The National Tree in 2005.

An Occupy DC tree from 2011.

The tree at the Statehouse in Columbus..

A tree in Columbus in 2012.

The same tree in 2011 after a Turkey Trot 5-miler.

The National Menorah in 2008.

A tree on the 16th Street Mall in Denver..

A tree in Buffalo.

My tree in 2008.

My tree in 2007.

My tree in 2005.

Frosty the Snowman, a block from my house.  Is he waving hello or goodbye.  This party store is closing forever on December 24th.