Hoozat fat man up on mah roof?

Well, kiddies, it's finally Christmas Eve.  Have you been extra good today to make up for all the crap you did the rest of the year? :-)  According to the NORAD online Santa tracker, as I type this, the Man in the big red suit is in Providence, Rhode Island, and will shortly be in Boston.  Hopefully he'll be at your house soon!

I love Christmas Eve.  I've got so many great memories of that particular night.  For the past almost 20 years, my family and I have had certain traditional things that we do whenever we happen to be together on Christmas Eve.  We would always sit in the living room together and one by one tell what we've been thankful for the previous year, and then say what we're looking forward to in the coming year.  After that, one of us would read the Christmas story out of Luke in the Bible.  Then it was my job to read "The Littlest Angel", and to supply the Kleenex for Ma, so she can dab her tears at the end of that story.  After that, we settled in to watch the classic movie "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation".  I still don't know why that never won any Academy Awards! :-)

 I guess since I wasn't able to be down there with everyone, I figured I'd just give my "Thankful/Hopeful" list here: 

Even though neither Jenny nor myself are gainfully employed, I am thankful that we have had a bunch of time to get some projects done around the house, and that I've had more time to work on things such as my painting and music.  As much of a strain as it can be financially, people don't usually have this kind of free time to just do whatever!  I'm also thankful that with all of this time together, Jenny hasn't strangled me!

I'm thankful for my brand-spankin' new (well, 10-month-old now) niece, Savannah, as well as all my other great girls, Atala, Morgan and Sweet Pea!  I love my girls!

As far as next year goes, I'm looking forward to both of us once again becoming gainfully employed.  That would be good.   Until then, however, I'm going to do my best to be more proactive as far as my music goes.  I want to try to find work as a session musician, and more work with a band; maybe be kind of a hired gun for all sorts of bands.  I'm also going to see if I can maybe get some of my artwork into a studio for sale!  I just really want to try harder to do what I love for a living!

Anyway, Santa's gonna be here soon, so I better get out of here.  I had to do a red and green stroke for the man, the myth, the legend.  Everybody sleep tight!  Don't be waiting up for him, or you'll get a lump o' coal in yer stocking!