Peace on earth, good will to men

Those two Santas are my and Nicole’s year-round salt and pepper shakers. Their names are Romulus and Remus. Once a year at Christmas time they are appropriate to the season, but they’re always around. Even a stopped clock tells the correct time twice a day.

I’m pleased and content this holiday season. Had a fine trip to Illinois for Thanksgiving, food was spectacular, and we visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Nicole and I enjoying Christmas time in the blue house, Friday night I bought a pine garland from the Christmas tree lot on the way home, we put it on the mantle and stuck the blue and white blinky lights in it.

So things is beatific. Nevertheless, my daily routine is still frustrating. I leave for work at 6 a.m. I am pleased with my job but it is challenging and often exhausting. I get home at 5 p.m. and don’t have nearly enough time to spend with wife before I have to go to sleep again. And I virtually never manage to communicate with friends and family, most folks in San Diego I haven’t connected with in six months. Russian? Did I used to study Russian?

But Thank God it’s Christmas time. It certainly takes the edge off of frustrations. And New Year’s Eve is just around the corner, and in the new year we’ll learn to work smarter instead of harder, so there’s a good time coming. In addition, this Christmas carol about "I heard the bells on Christmas day" (by Henry Longfellow) has been cheering me up:

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men."