LIghts Out 2013 and Other Monday Musings

Part of a Christmas light show done at Disney Hollywood Studios in Orlando.  The New York street set was lighted with many colored Christmas lights that would blink on and off to music.  The street even had fake snowflakes drifting down on us.

That was one more picture from our Disney trip of a couple of weeks ago.  We spent our first day at Epcot, and our second day at Hollywood Studios.  It was a very good family day, with the best ride being the Star Wars ride, a ride that we double dipped.

Christmas has been a blast, spending a good chunk of time with my family.  We just stayed here in Blackshear, and enjoyed life around the house.  It was a great Christmas gift, and I really appreciate having the opportunity to have done it.

We had a great Christmas Eve service at our church, a nice service Sunday, and a wonderful vestry get together on Friday night.  I love our church, and I love the openness and tolerance that it represents.  Everyone thinks around here that Christianity is solely represented by the most conservative denominations, and that there is little room for anything else.  That is not true, and I am glad that our church and a few others in this area can offer something different.

Alison and I got out to the movie theater once, and saw The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  It was a very enjoyable movie (Alison certainly appreciated the appearance of Orlando Bloom as Legolas).  It was obviously the middle of a larger enterprise, ending at an abrupt point, like a an old serial cliffhanger, as they continue to stretch out this one short novel into three almost three hours apiece movies. Given that, thank goodness they are good movies.

We would have seen other movies, but most of the big Christmas movies have not come to Waycross yet.  Saving Mr. Banks, American Hustle, The Wolf of Wall street, August:Osage County, are all no shows so far at our local bijou.

Our one and only bookstore, Read Me Again Bookstore, is closing at the end of the year.  You have two more days to take advantage of bargain sales, and then it will be gone.  I don't know if this area will ever get another bookstore.  Very sad.

I do not look forward to another tax season.  My work is already at a level of surprising intensity, and there is little I can do but work through it.  Such is life.

Until next time,

T. M. Strait