Have you made your New Year's resolutions? Are they realistic? What are you undertaking that will enrich your life?

I heard about a woman who walked into her bathroom and found her husband weighing himself on the bathroom scales, sucking in his stomach.

I received this some months ago and filed it away for future use. Now 2005 is drawing to a close. This would be a good time to talk about where we are headed as a nation.

I don’t wade out into the political waters too much these days. For one thing, I did my time in politics 20 years ago, serving as a vice-president for a local party in the county. For another, politics is a dirty, gritty, thankless business that often results in people being demeaned, defamed, and destroyed. I do vote. I tend to lean to the right of center on most issues and have no hesitation speaking out on moral issues such as abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, and the like.

As I look back on my relatively short lifespan on this Earth, there have a few days that have stuck out like a sore thumb - days that I would rather forget. Moving into our new house last month was probably the worst of these days. And how did that day end, you might ask? Well, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you – I will, though. But you’re gonna have to wait. Before my tale of moving woe begins, let us take a look-see at other not-so-stellar days in the life of yours truly.

More often than not, I turn down dates for New Year’s Eve because I have my own tradition that makes that evening one of my favorites of the year.

Dear friends, dear family, dear community,
As usual, we promised ourselves we are not sending Christmas cards to people we see frequently, but then, as we get notes or cards from them, we get cold feet, buy more cards, and send notes after all.

Traditions can be wonderful. In fact, traditions can give meaning and permanence to life.

Who, to this day, can’t remember their school colors and name the school mascot? Our high school colors were maroon and grey, we were the Indians, and the band played the school song each and every time a touchdown was scored. Even now, after nearly four decades, I can hear the song in my mind.

'Twas the night before Christmas, and everyone knew
The kids gobbled dinner; sweet tea and hot stew.
Smoke detectors hung on the ceilings with care,

Christmas has become so commercialized that it has lost a lot of charm. Over the past few years, I have looked for charm over expensive gifts.

On my computer desktop there is a little boy in white T-shirt and blue pants, shown in profile, hunkered down in that nonchalant squat that young kids and athletes make look easy. Arthritic adults wince at the mere thought of all their weight swung between two knees.

I heard recently that Christmas lists have grown so long that Santa's having to delegate this year. Taking the Southeastern U.S. is Santa's cousin from the South Pole named “Bubba Claus.” Bubba's mission is to deliver toys, but there are a few differences.

Upside-down Christmas trees, removing “Christmas” from the public venue, a public school rewriting the lyrics to “Silent Night” and substituting secular sentiments — what’s next? Well, for starters, how about large evangelical churches just doing away with the Christmas worship service on Christmas Sunday morning altogether?

A child lives in his own wondrous little world, a world most of us grownups have long ago forgotten. But it’s something about the holidays and Christmas, the sights, the sounds, and the smells which pull at even the hardest of hearts and helps us recall distant, long-forgotten memories. Memories which help us to go back — back to that time long ago when Christmas had a whole different meaning for most of us. It was a time when we saw Christmas through the eyes of a child.

Patt, a good friend, wanted my feedback and feeble professional guidance on a writing project that she’s working on. She sent the pages with a sticky note attached that said, “Give me your Mama treatment. Be brutally honest.”

While I cannot say I look forward to Christmas, I celebrate it, even if less enthusiastically as time passes. Perhaps it’s the “bah humbug factor” that comes with fading eyesight and the other vicissitudes of what is, however — at least for now — still preferable to the alternative.

As faithful readers may recall, when we travel in Europe we tend to stay in Bed & Breakfasts or family-run inns. We seldom do so in the United States, where we travel mostly in our little RV.

This was sent to me on the Internet. I cannot improve on it. Author unknown.

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,

“Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright 'round yon virgin mother and child. Holy infant so tender and mild, sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.”

At the University of Wisconsin, the concept of academic freedom and the right to free speech apparently does not exist for Christian students who happen to also be senior resident dorm assistants or RAs.

There’re two types of people in the world - those who like real ones and those who like fake ones.

Sure, an argument can be made for fake ones. They’re more symmetrical than natural ones. You can get them as small as you like or so big they hardly fit through the front door! Personally, I like the real ones. To me there’s no substitute for what grows naturally. Besides, how can you improve on what’s already perfect?

It seems, these days, that someone or some group lurks in every shadow, ready to pounce on a perceived new scratch on the Bill of Rights.

The other day, my quarterly issue of the trendy, glossy magazine Wild Turkey Hunting Strategies arrived. It was lying between my monthly issues of Vogue and InStyle. I took it from the mailbox then took it to the trash.

Amid the joy of Christmas, there is another side of the Christmas story that is often overlooked. Not everyone was thrilled to learn of the coming of the long-awaited Messiah. Jesus especially was not welcomed by King Herod, who could not stand the thought of anyone competing for his royal position.

Surely December is a strange time of the year! At our church we have a large outside trailer where we store all of our equipment for our church. It houses the riding lawnmowers, lawn signs for everything from turkey shoots, to an outdoor journey to Jerusalem signs, to journey to Bethlehem signs, Rodeo for Jesus signs, and of course, our Christmas outdoor manger figures.

As strange as it seems now, there was a time when I wouldn't allow a Christmas tree in our house. Well-meaning Christians taught me that the symbol was pagan and had no place in a Christian home. Yet, the story of the Christmas tree is part of the story of the life of St. Boniface (born 680 AD in Devonshire, England).

They say reality is stranger than fiction. How did the Egyptians build such perfect structures as the pyramids without the use of modern tools? How did a ship end up on top of one of the highest mountains in Europe? Who drew those giant drawings in South America carved in rock that go on for miles in every direction - the ones that while undecipherable from ground are clearly seen from a plane? Strange, indeed. But there is something stranger out there.

The recent clamor for a “date certain” to withdraw our troops from Iraq reminds me of why I thought this war was a bad idea long before the first shot was fired. I doubt many of you would guess my reasons.

Thirty years ago, in the wake of the Vietnam War, historian James Clay Thompson warned: the primary lesson learned was that the United States should never again go to war in a former French colony located on the other side of the globe, in a land with a tropical climate, against an insurgent force supported by a sympathetic communist regime in a contiguous state.. Thompson acknowledged the lesson’s limited applicability.

Excuse me while I kick off my high heels and stomp up on my soapbox.

I have resisted the urge to write about this for a very long time but it is becoming so rampantly rude that it is time to defend the business of good manners.

I would venture to say that most Americans have memories that flood their minds at “Thanksgiving.” Like many of our “religious” holidays certain ideas come to mind during these seasons. Personally, I like “Thanksgiving” as well as Christmas because it is, for me, a time when it “turns my heart toward home.” In fact Dr. James Dobson made a film entitled “Turn Your Heart Toward Home” in which he reminisced the times he and his father would go out into the woods and hunt and be together. He mentioned that of all the accolades and awards and degrees he obtained, these memories remained at the forefront of his childhood..