The tree downstairs in the living room is beautiful. Amy worked until after midnight wrapping the last of the gifts and getting everything in shape for family to arrive this afternoon.
Some fifty years ago, I would have scrambled down the steps in the pre-dawn hours, trying to beat my five other brothers and sisters to the tree to dive into the boxes and discover the joys that lay inside the wrapping.
President Bush, who is spending Christmas at the Camp David presidential retreat, called 10 members of the U.S. military on Sunday to thank them for their service and wish them a happy holiday.
During the calls, which were placed to troops stationed overseas or have recently returned from deployments abroad before 8 a.m. EST, the president asked about the status of troop morale, said deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino.
Sen. Chris Dodd, a Democrat who is considering a run for the White House, argued in a column in an Iowa newspaper Sunday for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
Iowa is home to the first contest for the Democratic nomination for president.
In an op-ed in The Des Moines Register, the Connecticut lawmaker wrote: "The time has come for the United States to begin the process of getting our troops out of Iraq."
The following editorial, among the most famous ever written, appeared in The New York Sun in 1897 and remains appropriate for this holiday season 109 years later.
IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS?
We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:
Dear Editor! I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Let us, for the duration of the holidays, banish this talk of a war on Christmas. Americans have always squabbled over Christmas, its meaning, its proper celebration, going back to the Puritans who banned it.
My wife and I have something on the order of 40 or 50 Santa Clauses in our house, some just a couple of inches tall, several about two feet tall, most grinning, one dressed in green, the rest in red, all of them with beards, all of them pleasing to look at, and yet we may have to get rid of them. No one likes Santa anymore.
It’s a shame because it was no easy matter for us to collect these artifacts over the years or for different legends to coalesce into the jolly, big-bellied, sleigh-riding Santa of today.