We pray for the children who put chocolate fingers on everything, who love to be tickled, who stomp in puddles and ruin new pants, who eat candy before supper and who can never find their shoes in the morning.

And we also pray for those who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire, who have never bound down the street in a new pair of shoes, who never played "one potato, two potatoes," and who are born in places that we would not be caught dead in and they will be.

We pray for the children who give us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions, who sleeps with their dog and who bury their goldfish, who hug us so tightly and who forget their lunch money, who squeeze toothpaste all over the sink, who watch their fathers shave, and who slurp their soup.

And we pray for those who will never get dessert, who have no favorite blanket to drag around behind them, who watch their fathers suffer, who cannot find any bread to steal, who do not have any rooms to clean up, whose pictures are on milk cartons instead of on dressers, and whose monsters are real.

We pray for the children who spend all their allowance by Tuesday, who pick at their food, who love ghost stories, who shove their dirty clothes under the bed and never rinse the bathtub, who love visits from the Tooth Fairy, even after they find out who it really is, who do not like to be kissed in front of the school bus, and who squirm during services.

And we also pray for those children whose nightmares occur in the daytime, who will eat anything, who have never seen a dentist, who are not spoiled by anyone, who go to bed hungry and wake up hungry, who live and move and have no address.

We pray for those children who like to be carried and for those children who have to be carried. for those who give up and for those who never give up, for those who will grab the hand of anyone kind enough to offer it and for those who find no hand to grab.

For all these children, we pray today, for they are all so precious.

Ina J. Hughs

A gift certificate from Pier One.
A gift certificate from Outback.
A gold plated Christmas ornament from Denmark. My friend gives me one every year and now I have twelve of these gorgeous things.
Two Eiffel Tower calendars and some French note cards from my frined who I will be going to Paris with in November.
A Hickory Farms gift basket.
A wine and cheese and sausage gift basket.
A Figi smoked duck gift basket.
A digital camera from our local bank.
A gift box of sunkist oranges.
An orchid.
A joke book about George Bush.
Two DVD's from my grandson.
Unknown presents from my kids, since we won't be together for our Christmas celebration for yet another week.
A gold bracelet from my hubby that spells out Key West, our favorite town where we run away to every few months for mini vacations from work...we live a couple of hours away.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to make a list...now I can print it out for when I do my thank you cards!

I think it is mostly about family. If a family repeats pleasant traditions during a time of family togetherness, it builds a basis for good memories for a lifetime. It is a way for family members to gain a little bit of immortality within their own circle, as well as strengthening family ties for future generations.

I think we all try to do this with our children and grandchildren, but sometimes we lack the knowledge. Developing memories with toys and money doesn't build tradition. When that's all there is to it, it is just an empty memory.

When I was growing up, it was a tradition in our family on Christmas Eve to go to church, return home to a special dinner (usually ham and potato salad fixed ahead), and opening presents around the tree. Each present had to be received with a short Christmas carol or poem. To this day, I remember very few presents. But I can still see the smiles on the faces of my parents and grandparents, and even hear those long gone voices. And that to me, to this day, is what Christmas is all about.

Wonderful day today. Picked up the grandson and we went to the one o'clock matinee of "Happy Feet" so my daughter and son-in-law could relax and cook the dinner in peace. Mr. Tinfoilin and I wrote her a check for the Thanksgiving groceries since she does all the cooking and decorating. Drove in separate cars so Mr. Tinfoilin could leave early and take his nap at home. Had a beautiful dinner and toasted family and friends who couldn't be with us this year. I helped daughter with the dishes and clean up. We drank wine during the clean up and laughed at each other's silly jokes. Also reminisced a little about past Thanksgivings. Grandson had a little crying jag (too much holiday fun and maybe sugar) and dad tucked him in the "big bed" with some cartoon movies. Had another wine in front of the fake fireplace. (We're in the Keys...not cold enough for a real fire. But it sure felt cozy.) I guess we're pretty low maintenance.

Wouldn't trade it for all the tea in China.

I think he sees himself as a nice guy and a smart guy and a fair guy and a patriotic guy. I don't think he sees himself as an ego guy or a power driven guy or a politically motivated guy or a controlling guy. But I think a little bit of all-of-the-above things make up Joe. I think as long as his dem friends in the senate encourage and nurture the first four qualities of the man, we will be fine: Did I mention, I think Joe is also an insecure guy.

I could have asked this at the baby boomer forum, but they don't get a lot of traffic, and I am curious as to how well we as older DUers are prepared for the coming years.

Tithing in the form of charitable donations: substantial.

Prayer and meditation without political interference: priceless.

We tend to think that bush has dropped Social Security since it was a losing battle for him in the past, but I have no doubt that he will try to sneak this in again. This is how he seems to win battles that we think are a sure thing. Back door politics, just like he got his way with Bolton and a number of judges, and most recently, torture. They almost have it down to a science: They set up a "coalition" of republican and democratic senators who loudly oppose bush, coughing and sputtering and making demands, and then before you know it...VOILA!!..."We have now reached an honorable agreement with the administration." (which in actuality means that the administration gets exactly what it wants).

This formula has worked 100% of the time, especially with the cooperation of "democratic" leaders, the likes of Lieberman, the brothers Nelson, etc.

Dems: DO NOT CONTINUE TO FALL FOR THESE TACTICS.

and someone caused it. It cost an undercover CIA agent her career, jeopardized her life and probably the lives of other agents. That to this day nothing more has occurred to bring to justice the people who caused this crime boggles the mind. We now know several of the "outers" per their own admission, and yet they not only still walk the streets without indictment, but are even allowed to flaunt their "opinions" on network news talk shows. Yes, I share your cynicism and disappointment.

Hugh Ross, an astrophysicist, has written very persuasively on this topic. He again brings us into the philosophical implications. Ross says that, by definition,

Time is that dimension in which cause and effect phenomena take place. . . . If time's beginning is concurrent with the beginning of the universe, as the space-time theorem says, then the cause of the universe must be some entity operating in a time dimension completely independent of and pre-existent to the time dimension of the cosmos. This conclusion is powerfully important to our understanding of who God is and who or what God isn't. It tells us that the creator is transcendent, operating beyond the dimensional limits of the universe. It tells us that God is not the universe itself, nor is God contained within the universe
------------------------------------

Stephen Hawkings has gone back and forth on his opinion as to whether God exists. I believe his most recent writings indicate that he leans toward the "doesn't" side. But in his earlier writings, he opined that the type of order that exists in the universe and the series of near impossibilities that created planet earth and led to life appeared to be a purposeful creation by a higher intelligence.

I bet he has the most interesting arguments with himself.

Most of my Jewish friends are born and raised here and fairly well off. They have a home here in Florida and a home somewhere up north, and they can afford to travel all over the world, and sometimes (but not often) they go to Israel. But they have no desire to fight and die over a postage stamp piece of land in the middle east.

These are the Jewish people I know, and they are kind gentle loving neighbors and friends and a few are closer to me than some of my own family.

But I admit that the Jews in Israel as well as the people of other nationalities who occupy the "Holy Land" just f%#$*#g piss me off. All of them over there are like those two Dr. Seuss characters who just dig their feet in to the sand and won't budge to let the other one pass. They have fought and quibbled and grumped and groused for thousands of years, and then the feud escalates, and they blow each other up and threaten to blow up the rest of the world. And always someone, usually us, has to go in there and try to broker a peace that might last, oh, maybe three months.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it isn't really anti-semitism. It's more anti-want to keep putting up with this crap year after year after year. It's not so much that we're sick of the Jews in Israel. We're sick of the whole lot of them over there and the constant threats and violence and bloodshed. So if that is anti-semitism, then I guess I am.

because their base just love to hear these kinds of ugly snarky attacks being brought out into the open. I was raised in an area where ugly little things were said about people of different races. "Kick a negro in the shins and they can't defend themselves" or "Negroes can't swim so don't worry if they fall in the water."

Fortunately I was raised by people who told me that this was utter bullshit and that God created people of many different colors who were all equal in His eyes.

I guess that might be the reason why I go out of my way to cheer for people of color who can kick the butts of these cross eyed inbred little chicken shits...in or out of the water!

And P.S. And I'm as white as the underbelly of a fish.

smarter than my mom and dad. Then I had some kids. Who, of course, knew they were much smarter than I. Now I have a grandson who thinks I'm the smartest person on the planet. And being a child of such brilliant parents, he should know!

I've had a weight problem my whole life and I've done all the diet stuff, so if anyone should have learned some tricks of the trade after all these years, it should be me. So I thought about the top three things in all of my dieting experience that HAVE worked in the past, and these are what I came up with:

1. Track food intake daily.

Any success I had in the past, I could directly attribute to keeping a journal, or in my case, just a log of daily calorie intake.

2. Eat everything and anything, but stay within a certain amount of calories.

I've always done much better when I don't deprive myself of any type of food, but rather deprive myself of how much of it I am allowed to eat.

3. Limit portions sensibly.

I could never successfully maintain a plan that called for under 1500 calories a day. Just went around hungry all the time. Fifteen hundred was the magic number for me as far as being satisfied enough.

SOOOOOOO...Having pondered these wisdoms, I set out three weeks ago with my pad of paper in my purse to track my daily intake, and a 1500 calorie unlimited menu diet at my disposal. The first week I lost eight pounds. The second, two. The next weigh in day is this coming Monday.

Everyone, wish me luck. So far so good, and I am looking forward to being the thinnest (and healthiest) one at my birthday party!!

Oh, and I am doing a Curves type of exercise program three to five times weekly.

He is the one who takes the calls from corporate who take the calls from the WH. He then passes on the message of the day to all the others (Katie, Matt, Tweety, Joe, Norah, Tucker, Rita, Andrea etc.). Olberman and Gregory are not given the kool-aid because they provide a nice contrast, and Imus can always belittle them and make them sound less credible to his a.m. audience.