Here’s wishing you a very Merry Christmas! I hope that you and your family the best Christmas ever!

As they do every year, NORAD will track Santa Claus beginning tomorrow morning. See, you knew the military had to have a fun side!

Check it out at www.noradsanta.com.

When you think of Christmas you probably think of Christmas trees, lights, Santa Claus, a blazing fireplace, gift giving, etc. But why do these images mean Christmas to us? Whether or not you believe the Christian mythology of how Christmas started, you should know that the holiday that we celebrate every December is a result of centuries of traditions from around the world coming together to form what we as a culture call Christmas.

To learn about all of these traditions and how they shaped our current Christmas celebrations, check out this great History of Christmas site put together by the History Channel. I stumbled upon it while looking for something specific, but wound up reading every page.

Enjoy! Merry Christmas!

Get in the Christmas spirit with as cute pictures of cats celebrating Christmas. WNBC in New York City has over a hundred photos that their viewers submitted.

View them here.

While looking for something using Google a few minutes ago, I stumbled upon a little Easter… errr… should I call it a Christmas Egg?

Do a search for “Christmas” or anything else that generates Christmas themed ads on the right side and you’ll see a row of Christmas trees along side your results.

Click here to see for yourself.

While browsing Digg tonight I happened upon this clip on YouTube of supposed psychic Sylvia Browne on Montel Williams’ show pretending to be psychic and upsetting families who have already suffered tragedies. Personally, I think there just aren’t enough people in this world who kick others when they are down. If more people went to hospitals and punched the ill or went to animal shelters and stepped on kittens the world would be a better place. Wait, you say that doens’t sound right? Well, that’s what Sylvia Browne does!

The thing that baffles me is that Montel gives this creature a platform from which to spew her crap. He always seemed like a reasonably intelligent guy to me, but yet he lets her on his show. Maybe he thinks that if people see her in action, they’ll realize exactly what she is.

Anyway, I could go on and on about this, but I think that stopsylviabrown.com does a better job than I could. (and you jsut have to love his logo!)

December has been a productive month for photography on my site. I just added even more photos. You can check out a bunch of photos from Christmas at Longwood Gardens in the Photos section.

I have to commend the Port of Seattle for correcting a really stupid mistake they made over the weekend at the Seattle Airport. They pulled down all of the Christmas trees at the airport after a rabbi complained. The employees of the individual airlines began buying their own trees to display in their ticketing areas because that is leased space and the Grinches at the Port commission couldn’t make them remove them.

However, after some public pressure the airport has now replaced the trees. They also say they did it because the rabbi said he wouldn’t sue.

I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again. This is not a religious issue! While Christmas is obviously rooted in a religious tradition, their is also a secular side to the holiday. I know people who aren’t even Christians who celebrate the secular parts of Christmas. I’m not exactly a bible scholar but nowhere in the bible story do I recall hearing about Santa Claus being present at the nativity scene.

Read the article on CNN right here.

It’s amazing how far and wide-reaching the coverage of James Kim’s tragic death has been. Usually a tech journalist such as James has a small following who will pay attention to something like this (I’m among that group.) but his tragic demise has been covered by every news outlet imaginable. I can’t stand People magazine, but even they put him on their cover. CNN had a special about it tonight as well. Even competing tech media outlets are doing memorial pieces about him.

The latest news is that he actually walked 16 miles in his attempt to save his family, not the 10 that was first thought.

I just arranged the Photos section of the website. I tried to better organize it by breaking my photo collection up by years.

At the same time, I also added quite a few new photos. The Winterthur album contains photos from my recent trip with Beth to Yuletide at Winterthur. The Hofbrauhaus album is from my grandfather’s 85th birthday celebration. There are also photos from the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, NJ as well as a ton of photos taken during a business trip to Hampton Roads.

Enjoy!