And the stockings were shipped to a soldier with care...

I donated the socks shown below to one of our fine soldiers. AnySoldier.com is a wonderful organization that makes it easy to support our men and women serving our country. If you utilize this organization, be sure to read the FAQ thoroughly before doing anything. With the large number of deployments coming up, it's important to get on board and do what we can.

Christmas was simple and lean this year, and we took this opportunity to shake things up a bit to make it memorable. Instead of spending money we don't have on turkey and all the trimmings, we ate salmon caught last summer from the banks of local rivers, cooked in a new-to-us way, blackberry cobbler from our own berries picked in August, etc. It was wonderful!