Christmas at the White House

Yes, you read that correctly, and yes... I was here, in the oval office!!!

Here is the Christmas tree in the oval office (there are Christmas trees in every room!).

A gingerbread White House (actually, it looked like it wa made of graham crackers, but maybe that's just me), complete with Barney, Miss Beasley (the Scotties), and India (the cat). =P
 

Yesterday...

All my troubles seemed so... (what's the opposite of far away?)

Ok, so those lyrics don't really fit, let's try these...

Got a ticket coming home,
Wish the officer had known
What a day today has been.
Then I stumbled through the door,
Dropping junk mail on the floor.
When will this day end?
~ Amy Grant

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. =(

Christmas in DC

These pictures are brought to you by America's tax payers (without whom these decorations would not exist) and Picasa (which allows people like me to make pretty, overlaid pictures like this). =) 

Only in Texas!

A real estate agent is giving away free Glock pistols to people in law enforcement if they buy a house from her. It may seem like a strange incentive to someone like myself who comes from an anti-gun state and has never hunted in her life, but in a state like Texas, guns are wildly popular... Apparently, it is a good advertizing scheme. =)

A couple of pics from the Messiah concert at the National Cathedral

 

On Tradition

I've often wondered, how did that become a tradition? Sometimes the question arises as I hear of some odd antics of foreign peoples, other times it is in regard to my own family. Of course, it usually involves repitition and managing to get other people to join. I suppose when it comes to a country-wide tradition, it might be harder to start, but it seems that in my family traditions are becoming a dime a dozen. C. and I used to always bring up past traditions that ended somewhere along the way, whether it was stopping at the hot dog stand when we went to get the Christmas tree with Dad, shopping at the mall for HOURS (torture for 2 VERY active girls!) trying to get all of Grandma's gifts from Grandpa (who never does his oen shopping). My younger siblings must have become tired of hearing what once was and began to create new traditions. I hear about these new traditions throughout the year, but they multiply exponentially during the Christmas season. "We HAVE to [fill in the blank]! It's tradition" is something I hear all too frequently. Some of the "traditions" are pretty funny, like the little, stuffed, cartooninsh-looking duck, wearing orange and green. There is absolutely nothing about it that makes one think of Christmas, but it is now "tradition" to stick it on the Christmas tree. =P Pretty much anything that they do once is up for "tradition" status, and what determines what does and what does not become tradition is beyond me! We do have actual traditions (those things we do without fail every year), of those my favorite is cookie baking. Although I am on my own and in a tiny apartment, I decided I should still keep the tradition of baking cookies, so I did. I invited some friends over and we went to work. The result was a day of fun and about 10 dozen beautiful cookies (there is nothing like putting a couple of perfectist guys in charfe of decorating!), which were shipped off to college students in the form of care packages. =)

I hope you noticed the spice dolphins. They are a very important part of any Christmas celebration! =P