Happy Merry Holidays

-Posted by Isaac

Merry Christmas everyone! Or Happy Holidays! Whichever you prefer. I'm so in the dark about the PC nuances and land mines. (Watch out! Oh, don't say that!) Last year, in my innocent stupidity at a farmers market, I wished about ten people "Merry Christmas!" before realizing that almost everyone was responding with "Happy holidays to you!"

This was in Worthington, where I guess you would expect people to be up on the proper Christmas well-wishing. I have since paid more attention to the supposed war on Christmas. You can learn so much from Facebook and talk radio! Haha. Kidding. Looking, listening, speaking, thinking, and looking around some more, I have come to my own conclusion: there is no war on Christmas. Some people are just overly sensitive, but we already knew that. Say whatever you want!

Silly talking heads, Christmas is for kids! It's a big ball of fun and stress and singing and sugar and stories and baby Jesus and gifts and entertainment and family and more stress all crammed into about a week. From my perch, I think the only people who truly enjoy Christmas are children.  

This Christmas we celebrate 13 years in the bees! Jayne gifted me with a hive kit in 2003, forever changing the trajectory of our lives. Forever ruining my aspirations of a lifelong career in "Ski Bum."

We threw an office Christmas party. The staff and their families came to celebrate, but as you can see, a bunch of kids hogged all the good stuff. The punch, the cookies, the cake, the candy. 

I'm just saying... Christmas is for kids.

Kids can make fun from anything. Give them a day off of school and they'll invent it! This week our kids discovered a giant sandbox.

The next project-- We're going to build a lean-to on the west side of the honey house.  The area needed to be raised, so I ordered 80 tons of bank-run fill and spent two fun days skidding around in the Bobcat.

Although it was cold, 80 tons of sandcastle building material is hard to resist.

Eventually the sandcastles got leveled and we needed more entertainment. You have to find something to keep these kids burning all that Christmas sugar.

So we decided to go hiking. We have set a (Mason invented) goal: The Hocking Hills at least once every month. Yesterday filled the December quota.

Deep Thoughts with Isaac: With hiking, with Christmas break, with children, with projects, with life in general...

When you start, the path is uncertain. The Where's, the When's, the Why's, the Whos, the How's will answer themselves in time. A leap of faith is often necessary.

You are sure going to hit some stumbling blocks along the way. Things will get tough.  

But you'll be sure find someone to help you through. (And you can almost bet that that someone is going to be a woman.)

Even when you're off and running again, even when the path is clear, you can still count on that someone to watch your back.

And you really need to get that someone a nice Christmas gift.

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!