Christmas Letter

I'm supposed to be writing the Christmas letter right now. Actually, I'm supposed to be working on my new book, but my wife has asked that I set the day job aside for an hour to write the Christmas letter. 

But it doesn't take an hour. It takes, like, twelve. Which would be ok for me to say if this was somewhere back in late November or early December, when I originally promised the Christmas letter. But the cards need to go out today, tomorrow at the latest. I don't have twelve hours. I have one. And I'm using a big part of that hour writing my first blog post in a month. Yay for procrastination. Yay for a scandalous hemmorhaging of time. 

Onward. 

I was up on Chiquita Ridge the other night, trying to squeeze in a few miles before dark. I stood at the highest point, next to the surveyor mark, when all of a sudden a mountain biker appeared out of the dusk. Turns out it was an old friend. We stopped and talked for twenty minutes, bemoaning the coming development of the ridge (softball fields and a hotel, from what the rumors say), but really just liking that connection that comes from years of living in the same town and training on the same trails. Our kids played Little League together ages ago, and our wives know one another from the gym. So it was good to talk. I had noticed a line of mountian lion tracks on the trail on my way up, and when we said our goodbyes I ended up running home in the dark along the same path that big cat had trod. Dusk had given way to darkest night within minutes, and it was up to the twinkling lights of the city to guide me home. There's always that one moment every year that puts you in the Christmas spirit -- one year it was turning into the church for midnight Mass just as Santa Claus Is Coming to Town came on KMET, another it was seeing the Christmas tree at Buckingham Palace on an otherwise miserably cold night. This year it was all the holiday lights of the town, guiding me home, making me forget about mountain lions and winter winds. 

If I don't post between now and Christmas, here's wishing you all a most merry holiday season. Now, on to the letter. 

Keep Pushing.. Always