2008, a very strange year, is finally drawing to an end.
If you'd like to pause for a moment to help those who defended both our national security and our national honor from beginning to end, often at enormous personal cost, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to the Wounded Warrior Project. As they say on their site, "the greatest casualty is being forgotten."
End-of-the-year odds and ends:
• The Year in Review, according to the inimitable Dave Barry. "January... in what some economists see as a troubling sign, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac invest $12.7 billion in Powerball tickets."
• Best 50 Astronomy Pictures of the Year 2008
• Andrew Dansby - Year-end best CDs
• A knighthood "for creating a flat world on top of a turtle"
Well, it's been a busy December between work and family matters. But the midnight Christmas Eve service at church was musical and magnificent, and Christmas Day was spent happily with family, including travelers from afar.
Today, the Houston Chronicle reports that Robert Earl Keen is coming to town for his end of the year show. As has become traditional, it will (again) feature prominently his famously eccentric song of Christmas in Texas.
Robert Earl Keen will trot out Merry Christmas From the Family when he plays House of Blues Sunday. Christmas will be three days past, but since the song documents a family-wide hangover waiting to happen (except for brother Ken’s new wife, Kaye), the song has a longer shelf life than the eggnog.The Houston-born Bandera resident says Merry Christmas has become more than a holiday favorite in his catalog. “People want me to play it starting around Memorial Day,” he says. “I try to step around that, though, and save it for the holidays. Something about that song and the holidays really rings true.”
As a Texas coda to the feast day, here's the fractured fairy tale in its entirety. Enjoy.