Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Everyone!

Merry Christmas Day! Icy weather in Seattle unexpectedly finds me in Denver with my immediate family, but my thoughts are also with friends and family at home around the various nooks and crannies of Puget Sound, and with the Obama family on holiday in Hawaii. I hope he is getting the rest that he needs and time with his family that he deserves!

"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" is my absolute favorite Christmas song. Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as a poem during the American Civil War and set to music later, its message is profoundly hopeful in the face of horrific war. It inspired me several years ago to make this music video with images of 9/11 intermingled with bells of many religions, angels, and symbols of a peaceful world.

Written 144 years ago during another period of great national trauma, Longfellow's beautiful words capture the hope and promise the Obama victory gives to so many people in the United States and around the globe.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

(stanzas 2, 4 & 5 are usually omitted in the song version)

I heard the bells on Christmas day

Their old familiar carols play

And mild and sweet the words repeat,

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had roll'd along th' unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bow'd my head:

"There is no peace on earth," I said,

"For hate is strong, and mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then from each black, accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound the carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

It was as if an earthquake rent

The hearth-stones of a continent,

And made forlorn, the households born

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,

With peace on earth, good will to men.

"'Til ringing, singing on its way,

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Christmas Eve

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

It came upon the midnight clear,

That glorious song of old,

From angels bending near the earth,

To touch their harps of gold:

"Peace on the earth, goodwill to men

From heavens all gracious King!"

The world in solemn stillness lay

To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come,

With peaceful wings unfurled;

And still their heavenly music floats

O'er all the weary world:

Above its sad and lowly plains

They bend on hovering wing,

And ever o'er its Babel sounds

The blessed angels sing.

O ye beneath life's crushing load,

Whose forms are bending low,

Who toil along the climbing way

With painful steps and slow;

Look now, for glad and golden hours

Come swiftly on the wing;

Oh rest beside the weary road

And hear the angels sing.

For lo! the days are hastening on,

By prophets seen of old,

When with the ever-circling years

Shall come the time foretold,

When the new heaven and earth shall own

The Prince of Peace, their King,

And the whole world send back the song

Which now the angels sing.

"It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" was written by Edmund Hamilton Sears in 1849. The carol started life as a poem written by its author who was a minister living in Massachusetts at the time. The music was composed by the American musician Richard Storrs Willis in 1859, who was inspired by the words of the poem. Although it is a religious song, it always fills my mind with images of Santa and his reindeer on their midnight mission.

Tuesday, December 23: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

Let your heart be light

From now on,

Our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

Make the Yule-tide gay,

From now on,

Our troubles will be miles away.

Here we are as in olden days,

Happy golden days of yore.

Faithful friends who are dear to us

Gather near to us once more.

Through the years we all will be together

If the Fates allow

Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.

And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, and made famous by Judy Garland in the 1944 film "Meet Me in St. Louis." I love its message about friendship lasting through the years despite separations of time and distance, and the image of the star-as-beacon on the tree.

Monday, December 22: Christmas Favorites

We are stuck in Denver due to bad weather in Seattle. Am dreaming of the white Christmas we could be having at home, thinking of my favorite Christmas songs, and sharing them here for the next few days. This one is for my Elizabeth, no longer three years old and laughing in my lap while we sing this song - but still just as delightful (in her own, seriously serious, 20 year old way)!

Jingle Bell Rock
Lyric by Bobby Helms

Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock
Jingle bells swing and jingle bells ring
Snowing and blowing up bushels of fun
Now the jingle hop has begun

Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock
Jingle bells chime in jingle bell time
Dancing and prancing in Jingle Bell Square
In the frosty air.

What a bright time, it's the right time
To rock the night away
Jingle bell time is a swell time
To go gliding in a one-horse sleigh

Giddy-up jingle horse, pick up your feet
Jingle around the clock
Mix and a-mingle in the jingling feet
That's the jingle bell
That's the jingle bell
That's the jingle bell rock!

Happy Winter Solstice!

The 2008 Winter Solstice occurred at 5:04 a.m. Mountain Standard Time. This picture was taken from my parents' deck in the Denver area this morning just after sunrise.

A new ABC/Washington Post poll shows that people are optimistic about the coming Obama administration.

Cheers for the return of the Sun and good things to come!

The Shortest Day

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died

And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world

Came people singing, dancing,

To drive the dark away.

They lighted candles in the winter trees;

They hung their homes with evergreen;

They burned beseeching fires all night long

To keep the year alive.

And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake

They shouted, revelling.

Through all the frosty ages you can hear them

Echoing behind us - listen!

All the long echoes, sing the same delight,

This Shortest Day,

As promise wakens in the sleeping land:

They carol, feast, give thanks,

And dearly love their friends,

And hope for peace.

And now so do we, here, now,

This year and every year.

~ Susan Cooper

12th Day: Twelve Drummers Drumming

On the twelfth day of Christmas

my true love sent to me:

Twelve Drummers Drumming

Eleven Pipers Piping

Ten Lords a Leaping

Nine Ladies Dancing

Eight Maids a Milking

Seven Swans a Swimming

Six Geese a Laying

Five Golden Rings

Four Calling Birds

Three French Hens

Two Turtle Doves

and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

(I have been visiting family in Colorado these past 12 Days of Christmas, for those who have inquired; hopefully home tomorrow night if the weather doesn't interfere!)

Friday, December 19: 11th Day: Eleven Pipers Piping

On the eleventh day of Christmas

my true love sent to me:

Eleven Pipers Piping

Ten Lords a Leaping

Nine Ladies Dancing

Eight Maids a Milking

Seven Swans a Swimming

Six Geese a Laying

Five Golden Rings

Four Calling Birds

Three French Hens

Two Turtle Doves

and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Thursday, December 18: 10th Day: Ten Lords a Leaping

On the tenth day of Christmas

my true love sent to me:

Ten Lords a Leaping

Nine Ladies Dancing

Eight Maids a Milking

Seven Swans a Swimming

Six Geese a Laying

Five Golden Rings

Four Calling Birds

Three French Hens

Two Turtle Doves

and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

(Happy Birthday, Kim!)

Wednesday, December 17: 9th Day: Nine Ladies Dancing

On the ninth day of Christmas

my true love sent to me:

Nine Ladies Dancing

Eight Maids a Milking

Seven Swans a Swimming

Six Geese a Laying

Five Golden Rings

Four Calling Birds

Three French Hens

Two Turtle Doves

and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

(December 17: Happy Birthday Greg W & Michele M!)

Tuesday, December 16: 8th Day: Eight Maids a Milking

On the eighth day of Christmas

my true love sent to me:

Eight Maids a Milking

Seven Swans a Swimming

Six Geese a Laying

Five Golden Rings

Four Calling Birds

Three French Hens

Two Turtle Doves

and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Monday, December 15: 7th Day: Seven Swans a Swimming

On the seventh day of Christmas

my true love sent to me:

Seven Swans a Swimming

Six Geese a Laying

Five Golden Rings

Four Calling Birds

Three French Hens

Two Turtle Doves

and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

6th Day: Six Geese a Laying

On the sixth day of Christmas

my true love sent to me:

Six Geese a Laying

Five Golden Rings

Four Calling Birds

Three French Hens

Two Turtle Doves

and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

5th Day: Five Golden Rings

On the fifth day of Christmas

my true love sent to me:

Five Golden Rings

Four Calling Birds

Three French Hens

Two Turtle Doves

and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

4th Day: Four Calling Birds

On the fourth day of Christmas

my true love sent to me:

Four Calling Birds

Three French Hens

Two Turtle Doves

and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

3rd Day: Three French Hens

On the third day of Christmas

my true love sent to me:

Three French Hens

Two Turtle Doves

and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

(Happy Birthday, Peter!)

2nd Day: Two Turtle Doves

On the second day of Christmas

my true love sent to me:

Two Turtle Doves

and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

1st Day: Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the first day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
A Partridge in a Pear Tree

A Great Republican Triumph - No Kidding!

History & Amazement

Vietnam refugee Anh Cao defeated William Jefferson in Louisiana for a seat in the 111th Congress. Jefferson, a Democrat, had served for nine terms and been found with $90,000 in his freezer (9 must be Jefferson's unlucky number); the FBI is still investigating.

In the meantime, Cao, only recently declaring himself a Republican after years as a registered Independent, came to the U.S. as an 8-year-old refugee, and is a community activist attorney with a love for philosophy.

read the whole story in the New York Times.

Rising tides raise all boats! In this case, I mean, let's hear it for worthy, ethical, and inspirational candidates on both sides of the aisle!

Pearl Harbor Anniversary

President Elect Barack Obama nominates retired 4-star general, Eric Shinseki, to head the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

From Bloomberg.com:

"Shinseki’s appointment won bipartisan praise from lawmakers, with Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama pledging his support and saying the former general was correct in his 2003 assessment.

“He’s a great soldier, he’s a great leader,” Shelby said today on the “Fox News Sunday” program. “We should have listened to him,” Shelby said. “We didn’t and look where we are today.”

Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan said on the Fox program that “it was wrong for the Bush administration to mistreat him the way they did.” Levin added that Obama’s choice of Shinseki shows that the president-elect “will welcome people who disagree with him to express those views to him.”

Obama announced Shinseki’s appointment on the 67th anniversary on the attack on Pearl Harbor. On Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, leaving more than 2,400 servicemen dead. The surprise strike drew the U.S. into World War II."

read the whole thing here

From my point of view, our vets deserve everything we can give them - the best support in the field, and, especially, the best care upon return. Traumatic head injuries are particularly troubling.

Working Our Way to Economic Recovery

According to this blog's countdown clock, there are still 45 days until the Inauguration. So while we wait to pop the cork (see yesterday's entry), President Elect Obama is doing what he can to calm national economic jitters while not taking over for an increasingly disengaged President Bush.

Today in his radio and YouTube address, Obama announced that his administration plans to invest in really, really big infrastructure projects to repair ailing national buildings and roads and in the process, create jobs. Kind of like the WPA in the Great Depression, only BIGGER (liberal and conservative economists seem to agree that huge spending by the Government is the only thing that will put us back on the road to economic recovery). Read about it in the New York Times today.

Not wasting anytime to think about other ways to spend our way out of trouble, a national conversation about Health Care Reform is already underway on the website www.change.gov. Take a minute or two to give the powers that be your own two cents worth of advice; it is reported that they are paying attention!

Should we have expected anything less?

Worth Celebrating - Cheers!

Today is the 75th Anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition. Good thing, because what is a real celebration without champagne?

If you will be in Washington, DC for the Inauguration on January 20, the good news is that local bars will be open 24/7 for the extended weekend, serving alcohol until 5:00 a.m. Let the good times roll!

The Robinson Family's Incredible Journey

Michelle Obama's family: From slavery to White House

By Dahleen Glanton and Stacy St. Clair
Chicago Tribune

GEORGETOWN, S.C. —

Tiny wooden cabins line the dirt road once known as Slave Street as it winds through Friendfield Plantation.

More than 200 slaves lived in the whitewashed shacks in the early 1800s, and some of their descendants remained for more than 100 years after the Civil War. The last tenants abandoned the hovels about 30 years ago, and even they would have struggled to imagine a distant daughter of the plantation one day calling the White House home.

But a historical line can be drawn from these Low Country cabins to Michelle Obama, charting an American family's improbable journey through slavery, segregation, the civil-rights movement and a historic presidential election.

Their documented passage begins with Jim Robinson, Michelle Obama's great-great-grandfather, who was born about 1850 and lived as a slave, at least until the Civil War, on the sprawling rice plantation. Records show he remained on the estate after the war, working as a sharecropper and living in the old slave quarters with his wife, Louiser, and their children. He could neither read nor write, according to the 1880 census.

Robinson would be the last illiterate branch of Michelle Obama's family tree.

Census records show each generation of Robinsons became more educated than the last, with Michelle Obama eventually earning degrees from Princeton University and Harvard Law School. Her older brother, Craig, also earned an Ivy League education. read the entire article here

Thought for the Day: Empathy

"You know, there's a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit - the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes; to see the world through the eyes of those who are different from us – the child who's hungry, the steelworker who's been laid-off, the family who lost the entire life they built together when the storm came to town. When you think like this – when you choose to broaden your ambit of concern and empathize with the plight of others, whether they are close friends or distant strangers – it becomes harder not to act; harder not to help."

~ Barack Obama, New Orleans, LA, Xavier University Commencement, August 11, 2006

Unprecedented Outreach

President Elect Obama met with the nation's governors today in Philadelphia.

"The meeting with the governors was "unprecedented," said Gov. Edward Rendell (D) of Pennsylvania, in that it was the first time a transition team for an incoming administration reached out to state governors to ask their help in crafting a national agenda." read the entire story in the Christian Science Monitor.

"Confidence . . . thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

December 1 - Let the Adventure Begin!

"President Kennedy once said that engaging the world to meet the threats we face was the greatest adventure of our century. Well, Mr. President-elect, I am proud to join you on what will be a difficult and exciting adventure in this new century. And may God bless you and all who serve with you and our great country."

~ Hillary Clinton accepting Barack Obama's nomination as his Secretary of State, December 1, 2008

I love that Hillary spoke of her appointment, with a smile at Obama, as an "adventure." A serious job requiring a keen mind, a good sense of humor, and a desire to make a difference and pioneer a new course. How can these two (along with the rest of the team) not succeed?

President Elect Obama also named Bob Gates to remain at Defense (Gates is an out-of-the-closet Obamacon; he's been giving speeches for the last year on the need to beef up the State Department; apparently there are more military band musicians than foreign service officers, an imbalance he would like to rectify); Eric Holder for Attorney General ("It is incumbent upon those of us who lead the department to ensure not only that the nation is safe but also that our laws and traditions are respected." - can you believe that has become a foreign concept at the Bush/Cheney Department of Justice???); Janet Napolitano to be Homeland Security Chief; Susan Rice as UN Ambassador (re-elevated to a cabinet-level position); and the imposing Jim Jones as National Security Advisor.

I feel safe.

Other December 1 anniversaries of note:

Today is the 53rd anniversary of Rosa Parks' brave decision to not give up her seat on that Montgomery, Alabama bus, an event that further sparked the Civil Rights Movement and helped give rise to Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today is also the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day, an event commemorated in Seattle with a glowing red Space Needle (see above) in support of the RED campaign.

And last, but certainly not least, today is my birthday. Happy day!