Merry Christmas

I'm about to pack the car and head to Columbia to Carol's for our annual Christmas Brunch. This is the first year in a long time that I won't have to rush through dessert and speed back to Dundalk to do set up for the Christmas Party. Since we had the party earlier this year I'll be relaxing and spending the night with the family watching movies and playing games.

I wanted to thank everyone for coming to the Christmas Party and bringing food, games and entertainment. I think this was one of the best attended Christmas parties ever, and probably the one I was the least prepared for. Usually I have a cheat sheet in front of me that reminds me what we need to cover during the course of the evening. This year I didn't even have time to write one, and because I was nervous and harried some things I wanted to do or say didn't happen:

* I wanted to have a group photo taken - since we haven't had a family reunion in a few years its been a while since we've done any large family photos. Someone remind me to do that next year!

* I wanted to sing Happy Birthday to all those folks whose birthdays are in December and who generally get short shrift because their big day comes during one of the busiest times of the year - so here's a belated Happy Birthday to Bill Pigg, Christine Lambdin, Joan Dotterweich, Maddie Minutelli, and Aaron Stahl.

* I meant to thank the families who brought friends to the party and I wanted to acknowledge those people and say that friends and extended family members are always welcome and encouraged to come to our family's events.

* I wanted to apologize to anyone who I might have offended with my offbeat humor. Some people are comfortable up at the podium in front of large groups of people. I'm not really one of those people. Give me a script or lines to read and I'm ok, but when it comes to speaking off the cuff, my humor kicks in. When I am nervous just about anything can come flying out - and usually does. I hope you all know that anything I say is all said in the spirit of good fun, except for those comments about my sister Carol and the incident about the chocolate fountain and the goat at last year's party. I meant all of that. In fact, I still can't look at a Hershey bar without getting a little queasy.

* Someone put an unusual little Christmas present on my chair when I wasn't looking. The identity of the gift was purposely mysterious, because the present turned out to be a pair of boxer shorts made to look like Santa's clothing. So thanks to whoever gave those to me (I have a sneaking suspicion they came from the direction of West Virginia!) and don't be surprised if they pop up again next year. You've been warned.

* Finally, the singing video took a ridiculous amount of time to edit and put together, so I thought it would be nice to make it available to everyone at anytime, not just last Sunday night. I've posted it here on YouTube where you can go back and see it anytime you want, and I'm also embedding the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XXjiKtDAmo



Have a great Christmas Day, don't eat so much you have to run to the bathroom and puke, and give my best to your family and your family's family.