Gift Ideas List 2014

We're getting out in front of the "what do you want for your birthdays and Christmas" conversation by trying to keep the Gift Ideas List current at this time of year. It's also got what Mom has given us for her own wish list. We'll try to flesh out some of the, um, thinner items over the next couple of weeks, but here's some to get you started.

Christmas 2013

We've posted a set of pictures from our Christmas morning adventures; click here or on the link at right, and come see our holiday!

Observations: Christmas 2013

Thoughts that occur to me as Christmas afternoon fades to Christmas evening:

• We've got a good doggie.  When we set up the Christmas tree, there was a momentary look of "these people are insane: they bring a tree inside!"  Apart from that, she's scarcely paid it any attention.  We were careful to put the breakable decorations up high; turns out she really couldn't care less about it.
• We're in kinda a sweet spot for getting up Christmas morning.  The kids are still enough into Christmas that they want to get up early and go see what the presents are.  As teen/pre-teens, though, they're not banging on my head at 5:30 anymore.  I was able to sleep in until after 7:00 this year.  Maybe next year, 7:30?
• We're also really past the whole drama of not having received every single thing on our wish lists. And surprises--like Sarah receiving a recurve bow and some arrows, and David receiving .380 ammo and personal protective gear for shooting--are beginning to be more appreciated.
• I am really just about thisclose to a food coma from the bacon-wrapped roast pork tenderloin (and everything else that was on the dinner table).  That's a lotta pork.
• Between Mary and David, 17 DVD/video-game sized packages were opened.  Mary should be set on her Bond movies for a few hours.  David has already learned how to kill everything in Call of Duty Ghosts…that didn't take long.
• Is it a sign that I'm getting old, when I really do appreciate the oh-so-practical gifts more than the rest?
• All the baking, all the cooking, and despite our best efforts there's still about as much food left as when we started.  I really could have done half the prep and still felt overfull at the end.

Year-End Gift Lists

The kids have begun their work on updating their gift ideas lists, ahead of Christmas, and Mary and I have too.  We've also added a category for Mom, for those Up North who may want ideas for her for the holidays; as she adds more ideas we'll keep this current.

Reading List for 2013

Each Christmas I get books--and real, physical, dead-tree-editions of them, too.  When clearing out things from under the tree I make a stack of the books next to the Reading Chair, which is the comfy armchair in our bedroom, and start working my way through them.  This year's stack by the Reading Chair was quite high, as I knew I needed to have several things for the Disney Cruise.  I just finished the last of them:

• Janan Ganesh, George Osbourne: Austerity Chancellor.  Was expecting a hack job on the unpopular Chancellor of the Exchequer who is leading the effort to rationalize Britain's debt.  Was pleasantly surprised to see a pretty balanced biography of this young figure.  Enjoyable, but regrettably didn't plow much new ground in the behind-the-scenes aspects of the book.
• Richard Aldous, The Lion and the Unicorn.  Very readable account of the biographies of Gladstone and Disraeli and their bitter struggles for power in 19th-century British politics.  Seemed to be a bit of a fan of Disraeli, yet not overmuch. Was hoping for more examples of their famous biting wit across the despatch boxes, but enjoyed very much all the same.
• Jon Meacham, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power.  Less about political power--its acquisition and exercise--than I had hoped.  An accessible and easy-reading biography of Jefferson, but seemed broader than the subtitle had implied.
• The Portable MBA. I actually had a much earlier edition of this book, but upgraded it and finally read it cover to cover.  Three folks in our Section are taking an MBA course, and I find myself wondering if it makes sense to follow suit, to bolster my credentials for whatever may come after my time in Budget Section.  The book helped by pointing out places I feel comfortable (strategy, marketing) and places I'm not (corporate finance, accounting) and thus places I probably need more exposure to before (if!) investing in another degree.
• Stephen Kendrick, et al., The Resolution For Men. Not all my reading is politics and finance: this was the text that accompanied our men's Bible study group this spring, and which followed from the movie, Courageous, that we all watched at the start of the sessions.  Most men die with regrets about the kind of man they were to their wives and children.  This study calls us to be the kind of men of courage that God expects, and to lead our families appropriately.  Thought-provoking and stirring.
• Frederick Beuchner, The Clown in the Belfry. A gift from my step-brother, who had previously given me another of Beuchner's works of sermons.  His simple, no-nonsense style reminds me of C. S. Lewis, but his connections to New England and Vermont make it all the more like coming home.
• Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies. Yes, my first work of fiction on the list--and actually, I think, the first one on the pile I read.  I had just finished Wolf Hall at the end of 2012, on the recommendation of a senior executive at OMB (long story), and enjoyed it so much I had to jump right into the second in the trilogy.  It did not disappoint: I cannot wait for the third to come out!

Some definite themes in my reading: British history, politics, biography, and Christian growth.  I do seem to be in a zone of reading on those topics between last year and this year; it will be instructive to see what 2014's pile looks like in January.

There is one other work of fiction I read this summer, but (a) it wasn't part of the Christmas pile of books to start the year, and (b) it deserves its own discussion separately.  That would be Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, a subject for another day.

New Pictures Loaded

Just posted up some photos from our Christmas, available by clicking here or on the links bar at the right.  New Uggs, a new pig, and more!