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We woke up about 8-ish. Watched a few Christmas programs on TV. Watched our *Family Tradition* of "White Christmas", "It's a Wonderful Life", "The Bishop's Wife", "The Bells of St Mary's", plus an assortment of a few others.

I had the Christmas Ham in the oven by 2:30 and all on the table by 4pm.

The house was particularly quite and empty this year.

We had No presents under the tree. Not a one. Not one sound of wrapping paper being ripped open or the glee of children's laughter as they saw what Santa brought them.

Ya see, we decided not to buy ourselves anything this year. We spent all we had to send Christmas to our son Russell and a couple of other Adopt-A-Marines deployed in Iraq.

The one gift we did get, wouldn't fit under any tree in the world. Our gift was one of best any "Military Family" could ask for. And that gift was one of our Marines' RayJ III being home for Christmas and a phone call from Russell in Iraq. ((He and the others received all our Christmas boxes)).

So we did have a Wonderful Christmas, just not a traditional one.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and has a Festive New Year!!

This 1st picture is RayJ III --home decorating the Patriotic Christmas Tree he and his Dad cut down(another family tradition). The 2nd picture is of our son Russell with his best buddy Joe. Their Christmas in Iraq.

This Christmas - 2009 - our deployed sons are switched. RayJ is deployed and Russell is stateside.