My Christmas present arrived less than one hour ago: my Internet came on!! This could indeed be a Merry Christmas! I’m into Week 3 of NO service and it’s been driving me crazy. So I grabbed a glass of iced tea and sat right down to create this Christmas Eve day article.

The main reason why articles have been so few and far between for the last month is precisely because of lack of reliable Internet service. I sure hope it is fixed now, but wouldn’t even bet a cup of coffee that it is.

Here it is, after 1 PM on the day before Christmas. And Pat just told me what I could get her for Christmas! So priorities are set:

1. Finish this article, then…
2. Go Christmas shopping.

Tonight we will go to the Christmas Eve candlelight service held at our park’s clubhouse. After that, there’ll be a social hour —which means lots of Christmas cookies and other goodies of the season!

Tomorrow we’ll join a couple hundred other park residents for Christmas dinner at the clubhouse. Then come back to the trailer for a nap, I suspect.

Thinking out loud:
It is soooo nice to have the Internet back and the great choice of music it provides. Right now, I’m listening to WQXR, the classical music station out of New York City. They’re playing the familiar Christmas carols performed by symphony orchestras. Beautiful! Thank you, WOI and WCAL (St. Olaf’s station back then), for letting me enjoy classical music decades ago and continue my love for it. Well, some of it.

This article should concentrate on Christmas —why it is, why it is important, and why each of us should care. Instead, it’s going to be sort of a catch-up because of lack of communications on my part.

The weather has been great here so far, frequently reaching into the 80s. Right now, my thermometer reads 86*! That seems a bit strange to this ol’ Iowan. But we’ll enjoy it while we can.

Yesterday we did exactly that. Friends, formerly of Iowa City, flew down from Port Aransas. We picked them up and went to a well-known restaurant right on the bank (north bank!) of the Rio Grande River. It was a perfect day for dining on their patio. One Border Patrol boat went by, and two Texas Highway Patrol boats. They are armed with visible guns and three —yes, THREE— 300 HP outboard motors! They can move out!! The trees and brush you see in the picture are in Mexico!

Now to the Christmas part.

And it is CHRISTmas, not Xmas nor Season nor Holiday. It’s Christmas! I’m so sick and tired of all the political correctness in our country that I could puke. Worse yet, our country is suffering greatly from it, I fear. Will the people wake up before it’s too late? —or is it already too late?

Christmas is a time for families and love and peace —peace everywhere. We’re a long way from that these days, aren’t we! MUCH work to do. Down here, we have all temporarily abandoned our families to avoid what some consider an unpleasant environment, at least most years. But we think of our families a love them just as much as if they were next door or across town, or through the woods. In addition, we’ve joined or created a much larger “family” down here in Texas.

Pat and I wish you all a

Merry Christmas