My guess is that if you ask a bunch of people what truly "means Christmas" to them, you'd get a lot of different answers!As I have alluded to a few times in the past, my most significant memories of Christmas were always related to food, and that often involved helping my mother in the kitchen as she prepared a veritable cornucopia of delicacies that we would enjoy all the way from December 23rd till close to New Year's.

I remember a very long time ago being at a self development retreat, in which the conversation turned to the whole idea of seeking enlightenment.The workshop presenter rather wisely pointed out that as long as you're seeking something you're openly confessing that you don't have it. In the case of this particular workshop we were talking about enlightenment, but you could just as well substitute in concepts such as happiness, inner peace, success, or anything else you choose.

Our middle son and daughter — both of whom live and work in the Seattle area — have been spending the weekend with us.They are both in their mid-30s now, and we don't see them all that often, anymore... naturally, they have "lives of their own."

It was dark when I woke up this morning, and thanks to the heavy cloud cover, it will likely be dark again around 4:00pm. Today is the Winter Solstice; the shortest day of the year, as well as the longest night.When I was a little kid, I used to think it was really cool to live in a place where it was dark all the time, just like I would — six months down the road — think that it was really cool to live in a place where it was still ”almost daylight” at midnight on clear days during the latter half of June.

Like many other stores, our local supermarket chain — which is actually a national chain — has one of those rather popular "loyalty programs."All in all I'm not complaining because it works pretty well and I have to admit that it does save us some money on our grocery bill which feels liek it is just getting out of hand. The most recent sign I saw was up by our eggs — which are already incredibly expensive compared to just a few years ago — stating that due to avian flu, eggs are limited to one package per customer, and (by the way) prices are a little higher than before because eggs are difficult to get.

I must confess that I do enjoy reading about people's travels, and I really enjoy the variety of travel photoblogs we have here on Hive.The rock of Gibraltar, near where we lived in Spain, when I was a teenagerThat said, having traveled — and moved — extensively in my youth, I don't necessarily miss traveling, and feel quite content to live vicariously through other people's exploits.