"I have always thought of Christmas as a good time; a kind, forgiving, generous, pleasant time; a time when men and women seem to open their hearts freely, and so I say, God bless Christmas!" ~ Charles Dickens

Good morning Monday. I can't say that I was prepared to greet you but you came anyway. And, here we go again, I checked and it's already December 2, 2013. Can you believe it? We continue to be so very thankful for our time with family during the Thanksgiving holidays. We did hear reports of entire families who were suffering some type of gastrointestinal bug and that pretty much did away with their big family gatherings. That situation along with some traveling back from out of town made our Church attendance very spotty yesterday. But, we pray for a quick recovery for those ailing and for everyone to be able to be in their place as they start this brand new work week. We anticipated a great meal and the wife did not disappoint. That food was so special. We could hardly stop eating it. However, by Saturday, well, it was, as they say, time to move on. I had eaten enough dressing to last me for a while so to speak. Funny how that works. There's probably a lesson in there somewhere.

I didn't venture out for any Black sales events. The wife and her entourage spent about ten hours mixing it up at the mall and other venues. There were some excellent football games on and I along with my nephew and his son watched several of them. We also caught some of the shenanigans going on out in the shopping wars. They showed them on the local news. People pushing and shoving and some even getting into an old fashioned wrestling match right out in the middle of the store. There were also the regular stuff about armed robberies and home invasions. This caused my nephew's son to remark that he now understood why we always keep our doors locked. They live out in the country and I can remember living in a world like that where these types of things seemed to be so very far away.

The wife and I did a Santa appearance for six hours on Saturday. I actually experienced a first for me at that event. Triplets. Now I've done plenty of triplets but these two girls and one boy were fit to be tied from the get go. They were 18 months old and strong as all get out. I've held a kicking bronco kid more than once. I've had to strong arm two at a time. But this was my first time to try and keep control of three kicking screamers at the same time. I always try to hang on in a way that will not hurt a child but trying to do that with three was about as challenging as it comes. Then people wonder how Santa can be so worn out after just sitting in a chair all day. Fortunately, the professional photographer lady we work with has photo correction tools that can take a pose of them by themselves and then put me in the picture with them. She actually had me pose for several shots that will be used for that purpose. That will make the grandparents happy when they get their greeting card but make sure they don't ask me what I thought about the situation. Just joking. Have a good rest of the day and may God continue to bless is my prayer. Amen.  ...More later.