Good morning GH.  The view out the Weather Window is kind of bleak this morning.  The skies are gray, the temperature on the desktop display is showing 27 degrees, and other than that, not much is happening.  The kids are still off from school, so they aren't up to much either.

I simply have to comment on our Christmas day.  It was pure and simply, the best we have had in a long time.  As some of you may know, while I do like traveling, I also am quite the homebody.  I didn't get the traveling bug like Mary did when she was young, due I'm sure in large measure to the fact that her mother worked for the airlines.  They got to fly around the world for free. or at least at very low cost.  I remember when Mary and I were first dating, I asked about the Playboy Club in downtown Chicago.  She replied in a casual fashion, "Once you have seen the one in London, England, the rest are just a repeat."  I don't think she meant it in a negative way, it was just a matter of fact observation.  But, when I was a kid, I could honestly say that I had never been farther north than Minnesota, farther south than Springfield, IL, nor farther west than the Mississippi River.  My parents never traveled.  Maybe when my dad went to England for WWII, he got enough of traveling.  Or, maybe we just didn't have the money.  Whatever, I didn't feel deprived, nor even curious.

I still remember my first plane ride.  I was maybe eighteen or nineteen years old, and a friend and I took a quick flight with his flight instructor, something I never dreamed about.  We flew over Chicago, and when the my friend mentioned Wrigley Field, the instructor turned the plane on its side so we could get a better view.  I wasn't scared, just fascinated.  My next ride on a plane had to wait until I was in my thirties, when I flew for business to Indianapolis, IN.  Once I got on the plane and took off, it was cool.  Mary thought that people who flew on such a small plane had to be crazy.

But, I digress.  I got a way cool John Wayne ornament from his role in  Rio Bravo, Sugar got a package of biscuits, and Mary got something it turned out she really liked, a set of four prep bowls for her kitchen.  We both liked this Christmas more than most others we could remember.  We watched some movies, ate too much, and then finished off the evening watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  When we all finally went to bed, Sugar still wouldn't sleep in her bed, and I doubt that she even knows why.  So, here we are at a new day, and I am satisfied that we spent some time as just us, our little nuclear family, Jack, Mary, and Sugar on Christmas.  So, now it is...Tea time.

Oh, as an aside, I registered both Mary and myself for an audition on a TV game show.