Son of Timatollah

Greetings one and all from the McKinley/Wilson household. We are observing an almost-completely non-traditional Christmas this year, as we are traveling tomorrow, Christmas Day, to Mack's folks' in Hooker, Oklahoma. We fly to Amarillo via Houston, then rent a vehicle to drive up to the OK panhandle. We fly back home this coming Tuesday.

Mack's mom has Alzheimer's, so this is not going to be one of those fun trips. But it will be a good trip to make, nonetheless. He saw his folks last summer, but I haven't seen 'em since August a year ago. No one is getting any younger in this world.

Since we're traveling on Christmas, we haven't done anything Christmas-motivated around here except send out cards. We don't have a tree; we didn't get decorations down from the attic to put up outside or around the house. I was afraid we'd be depressed about it, but it's gone pretty good so far. Tonight we're having a nice dinner (ham, sweet potatoes, salad, and rolls), opening our Christmas cards (have only opened a few so far), and exchanging stocking stuffers (no stockings). Maybe it's good to scale back every so often.

If you've been looking for updates here, you haven't been finding anything. I'll admit it: I've spent more time on Facebook than I have here: Little updates on my life, arguing with people about health care reform, following the updates of people ranging from my childhood to current students and colleagues. But it doesn't lend itself to longer-form writing (even with its "Notes" feature), so I don't want to let this go.

So, with luck there'll be more updates here: More pics (I'm behind on those), more commentary, and more overall updates.

Labels: 2009, christmas, facebook, merry, update

This is the bike that Mack got me for Christmas this year, suspended from the bike storage system he installed in the garage yesterday. Sweet, huh?

Labels: bike, christmas, garage, rack, storage, suspend

Some—say, Bill O'Reilly and the Fox News crowd and similar—would have you believe that Americans of all previous generations went around at this time of year saying "Merry Christmas," and that "Seasons Greetings" or "Happy Holidays" are a Communist or Atheist (or Jewish or Muslim) invention designed to denigrate Christianity.

As evidence to the contrary, here's one part of a presentation on how Christmas was celebrated in the 1820s at The Hermitage, President Andrew Jackson's home near Nashville.

Labels: andrew, christmas, greetings, happy holidays, jackson, merry, seasons

Miss Carl's Egg Nog, in particular. With Knob Creek.

Merry Christmas.

Labels: christmas, egg, merry, nog