We did recognize Christmas here. We had a squadron get together at noon on Christmas Eve. We had short slide show of pictures and then had pizza. I stayed around and played horseshoes for a while. I checked in to work and went through e-mails for the rest of the afternoon. Below are pictures of the the gathering and a short speech by LtCol Dudjak. The next picture is of LtCol Dave Pollock, Maj Nick Lynch and I eating our pizza...from Pizza Hut on the boardwalk incidentally. It was the second time I have had pizza in many months. Not your traditional Christmas meal, but it was a nice change and pretty good.
I attended the Christmas Eve service at 1900 at night. The service was ok and the songs were a nice reminder of home. I slept in Christmas day. I did go in to work to check e-mail, but it was pretty much a down day which was nice. Unlike Thanksgiving where we, the US, were the only country taking a down day, nearly all of the NATO countries celebrate Christmas. They did serve a Christmas lunch meal that consisted of roast turkey, stuffing and candied yams - very similar to the Thanksgiving meal, but still pretty good.
We recorded holiday greetings for home in October. They are finally ready to be released for Christmas. I am including an upload of the greeting from a military website we found and also a link to ABC27's website where my greeting is available. I do mess up in the beginning a bit, I had just been promoted at this point and have trouble getting out Lieutenant Colonel Todd Hirneisen. Actually, I think I say Lieutenant TodColonel Todd Hirneisen. Anyway, the rest of it is ok...
Link: http://cfc.whtm.com/videoondemand.cfm?id=54934&category=vlt
We made our flight arrangements this week as well. The dates could float a little bit, but it is good to be on the lists for leaving. I hope you all had a good Christmas. Thanks for following along. Keep the e-mails coming...Until next time.
