And A Merry And Happy Christmas To All!

To each and everyone I want to wish a happy, wonderful, joyous and merry Christmas!  It is a wonderful day and I hope that each and every person who reads this has been able to be with their family, friends and loved ones on this day.

Christmas is such a quiet and peaceful day.  It is the one day each year in which much of world seems to slow down and even stop for a little bit.  Most stores are closed, there seems to be less traffic on the streets and there is just a slow, low key aspect to this day.  I hope the peace and quiet of this day has been part of everyone's day!

For us it has been a great day.  We hosted a Christmas Eve get together last night that was a lot of fun.  We had some excellent food, numerous bottles of wine and vodka were drunk and several rousing rounds of the game "Apples to Apples" were played.  We kept things going rather late and when the time came for everyone to go home, I think a good time had been had by all.  It was certainly the most lively Christmas Eve this house has seen since 2005!

Today has been much quieter with only Zack, Nancy and me here.  We exchanged gifts as soon as we awoke and have just taken the time to hang out together and enjoy each others company.  A big change from prior years was the time we arose.  You can definitely tell that Zack is now officially a teenager as he didn't get out of bed until 9:00AM!  I could have slept until noon I am sure as I stayed up late cleaning up the house after our Christmas Eve gathering and then started the work to wrap Christmas presents at 1:00AM.  Sleep didn't come for me until 3:00AM, so perhaps a nap is in order this afternoon.

Right now Zack and I are sharing some time together in the comfort of the warm basement.  There's a delightful fire burning in the fireplace so we are warm and cozy.  Zack is going back and forth between watching some TV and exploring all the features of his new laptop.  As he is going into high school in the 2013/2014 school year I felt it was time for him to have his own laptop.  This was his major gift for Christmas.

A little later today the three of us will head over to my brother's house for Christmas dinner.  We'll hang out there for much of the late afternoon and early evening.  Once I get Zack and Nancy back home, I'll head over to Lisa's house to spend the rest of the evening hanging out with her and her sons.

All-in-all this is the best Christmas that we have had in many years.  The best part of it has been spending the time with those who I love.

I really hope that everyone has been able to experience the warmth and joy of being with their loved ones on this wonderful day.

Merry Christmas! ~ J.

A Christmas Day's Walk

Christmas is always such a wonderful time. The day in and of itself is magical in the fact that it is the one day out of the entire year where much of our world, at least in the western, Judeo-Christian world, comes to a complete grinding halt. There are hardly any stores open for the day. There is very little traffic on the roads. I so love the peace and quiet that comes with Christmas! To me Christmas is always a day to get out and walk, hike or ski. This year my desire to be outside and take a long, thought producing walk was very strong. Zack would have nothing of it. I cannot blame him. He just received a ton of toys for Christmas, so he wanted to stay at home and play with them. I wasn’t about to force him to go out and walk with me. I let him stay at home with Nancy – his grandmother – my late wife’s mother.

I journeyed out for my walk late in the afternoon. My destination for the day was the East-West Regional trail in Highlands Ranch. Now Highlands Ranch isn’t necessarily my favorite place in this world. It is large development that has grown from nothing in 1988 to a home for over 100,000 people. Each year, the bulldozers and earth movers scrape away more of the open rangeland and turn into tracts of homes. It is hard for me to see acre after acre - home to wild animals and beautiful plants turned into roads, shopping malls, houses and all the other accoutrements of our modern world. The East-West Regional trail is a new trail that will eventually span much of northern Douglas County running from Highlands Ranch to at least Parker. So far only 6 or 7 miles of it have been built in 2 separate areas. I was going to walk on the section that starts at trailhead near Daniels Park. The sun was already beginning to set by the time I started on my walk. The wind was very strong and I was glad that I had an extra jacket in my car. The hike itself was good as I had the whole area pretty much to myself. The trail follows a high ridge that is up above Highway 85. This ridge marks the western most terminus of the Palmer Divide. Once you descend down this ridge into the valley below the land is relatively flat until you hit the foothills of the Front Range Mountains about 7 miles further west. To be honest the hike was nothing particularly special based upon the terrain and environment. But what was special was the time it gave me to think and enjoy my own thoughts locked away in my head. I am sure if anyone had seen me I would have seemed to have been in a fog – but it was exactly what I needed on this magical day of days! I hope everyone’s holidays are going well and are very enjoyable! Peace to all!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree - And a crazy dog!

Some of my most favorite things about the Christmas holiday season are the Christmas trees and the beautiful lights that are all over the place. I love the glow that the Christmas tree lights put throughout the entire house. I cannot stand to have my Christmas tree sit in my living room unlit. The first thing that I do as soon as I get out of bed in the morning is turn the Christmas tree’s lights on. Seeing an unlighted Christmas tree always makes me feel sad and depressed. It is like the spirit of the tree is gone and just a ghost remains when there are no lights. When it is a natural tree that is going to get tossed out after Christmas I think it was even worse when it sits there without the lights turned on. Given that we live in Colorado, we have an artificial tree. When I first moved here years ago, we would get real trees. After 2 years we quickly learned that real trees in Colorado were plain and simply fire risks. With the low humidity in Colorado, real trees tend to dry out and start dropping their needles within 10 – 14 days. If you are like me and like to have your tree up for 4 – 5 weeks, natural trees don’t work too well. This year marks a return to a tradition that we have had since Zack was a baby. We will have 2 Christmas trees in our house. The larger of the 2 trees is located in the living room. It is a seven-footer and it is decorated with over 2000 lights. It makes the entire house glow with beautiful colored light. We have hundreds of ornaments that decorate it and it takes usually several days to get all the decorations on it. The second tree will be located in our family room and it is a dedicated “Winnie the Pooh” tree. We didn’t put the “Pooh” tree up last year because I needed but buy a new artificial tree as the last one had broken. It is just fun having the trees up. On another note… I just had to add this video to the blog. I was sent a link to this video by a good friend. I laughed my ass off when I saw it. It kind of reminds me of my dog Lex. Hope you all enjoy! I find it funny the dogs name is Bailey. My Bailey is now a nice sedentary old dog - but he was once like this nut! Thanks and peace to all!