Happy Holidays

I hope you and your families had a wonderful Christmas.  The Beaird family loves us some Christmas and this year we continued a number of our traditions: watching a live performance of Dickens' "The Christmas Carol"; attending the Candlelight Processional at EPCOT (this year our narrator was Gary Sinise...Lieutenant Dan!!); driving around looking at Christmas lights; watching the movie "Christmas Vacation" on Christmas Eve (while drinking Pa's loaded eggnog); and of course the St. James Christmas Eve children's mass (Shannon had a choir solo this year).

The best Christmas gift of all was spending time with all of the family and friends who came through our house.  We are truly blessed to have so many grandparents, aunts, uncles, in-laws and out-laws who live close enough to visit.

Things are going pretty well on the medical front although I continue to battle low blood pressure.  The good news is that there have been no more fainting episodes, but I do get tired and light-headed quite often.  The bad news is that the doctor won't let me drive.  It's like being 14-years old again and waiting for Mom to take me everywhere.  Not much fun...but even less fun for my chauffeur, Jen.  The "no driving" rule sometimes extends to a "no a lot of walking" rule and I used a wheelchair at EPCOT when we saw the Candlelight Processional (Aaron did a great job pushing me). 

Perhaps the weirdest impact of the low blood pressure is the seriously swollen ankles and feet I get because there isn't enough pressure to fight gravity and my blood pools down low.  There are times when I can't wear shoes because my fat little sausage feet have swollen up so big.  If this was a fairy tale, deep in the dark woods a hungry wolf would be drooling over the visions of my ankles in his mind's eye.

Now that the calendar has turned to 2013 and we're in college football bowl season and NFL playoff season, I've noticed a few things:

-  Why does ESPN need 40 different NFL analysts?  If they only had to pay 10 people, would there be fewer commercials and would my cable bill be cheaper?

-  What's with the trend of football players with long dreadlocks?  I don't like it because I can't read the names on the back of their jerseys which means I can't fool Aaron into thinking I know who all these players are.

-  Why did the Gators decide not to show up against Louisville?  I'm glad we were watching the game at a great party (thanks Tyndalls!)...it made the sting of an embarrasing performance hurt less.  Good thing we're a basketball school!

- Who's going to win...'Bama or Notre Dame?  It's hard to root against the SEC, but I have a number of Notre Dame friends and wouldn't mind seeing Darth Saban come up short...it should be a great game.