Feliz Navidad! Веселое Рождество! Vrolijke Kerstmis! Frohe Weihnachten! Buon Natale! Joyeux Noël ! Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

I'm debating going into my philosophy on santa claus or recounting the events of the day....

we'll start with my day and see if we're up for philosophizing (is that a word?). emily got amy up at 4:30 am to go downstairs and open stockings (we open stockings, then wake up parents and open presents). i got to sleep because i don't share a room with her :). then at 6:00 they woke me up, and parents, so we went downstairs to open presents. most of the day was spent playing new games, looking for old games that would enable us to play new ones, playing old games, playing more new games, decorating cookies, and realizing we need a new video card for our new computer game to work. lots of games. and TWO sit down, family meals in one day. some kind of record there.

As for santa claus philosophy...i'll try, but i'm not sure how well this will go, i've only really half thought it out myself. i think i always had a different kind of santa pictured in my mind than most kids (one more suited to the meaning of christmas in my opinion, but getting there). the picture of a guy in a jolly red suit, with flying reindeer...i never could really picture that as real (although i admit to throwing celery on the roof for those reindeer). i always knew the mall santas were fake, and i knew early on who was eating the cookies and milk and who was writing the letters from santa. i knew the "santa tracker" online was not really tracking santa. that is not to say i didn't believe in santa, far from it. i believed in santa longer than most people, because i really wanted to believe he was real. i took much heart from the dear virginia letter, which i still think is one of the best christmas stories in and of itself (the editorial in the enquirer was touching, but just not the same caliber and innocence...it didn't sound like it believed itself, really.) when i saw polar express, i almost cried, i really wanted to hear that bell. but the santa i believed in-and still do, when it comes right down to it- isn't the jolly red santa claus invented by coca cola. he's much closer to st. nicholas. what i'm about to say could be read the wrong way, but i'll say it anyway. I thought/think santa was kind of like God. Not in the way that i worshipped him, but in the way that Santa was a...prophet's not hte right word...mriacle worker? that God acted through. And he might not have hundreds of elves making tickle me elmos for spoiled children, but that simple gifts and gestures miraculously appeared for the poorest of children on Christmas morning. Strange, sure, and i've no idea where i got such a notion, but i much prefer it to the coca cola's santa, who in my opinion could be seen as the symbol of commercial christmas, whereas mine, i think, remains truer to what should be the true spirit of Christmas. And by now I may not be making any sense at all, so I'll end here.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!

And for those curious, the order of the languages in the title is Spanish, Russian, Dutch, German, Italian, French, and English.

We could learn a lot from crayons: some are short, some are tall, and all are different colors, yet they all live peacefully in the same box.