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1 Timothy 1:15-17

"The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever."

If Huckabee was sincere in his desire to spread Christianity via the presidency, he would have used real, Christian candy canes instead of these pagan ones on his campaign Christmas pamphlets. (Note the lack of just three small, red stripes)

If a candidate is going to shill his faith to get the votes he/she needs to get it right completely. This just proves how insincere he and his followers really are.

Full disclosure: I'm a Christian who wants a moral, sane, intelligent person in the White House (haven't had one of those since 1^st term - and only the 1^st term - Reagan). I do not care what the personal religion of a candidate might be since I certainly do not want them using the way they interpret the principles of their faith as their sole means of governing.

The odds are good that we will have a Muslim or outspoken atheist (that's a religion even though they won't admit it) as president some day. Just taking what we've seen as to how seriously bad the Koran can be interpreted by followers, there's no way I want to set a precedent now.

(Photo brought to you by Yahoo! News/Reuters)

My company is an executive sponsor for Treehouse, a Washington organization who provides for the needs of foster children.

An estimated 19,000 Washington children end up in some form of foster care each year as a result of abuse or neglect – and the holiday season can be a difficult time for many of these kids. Treehouse makes a difference in their lives by providing gifts during the holidays, as well as services year-round that fulfill key material needs, help them learn and give them a real childhood as well as hope for the future.

Please consider donating during their holiday drive.

Watched "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" with the little ones this evening (the original animated one...not the live-action abomination) and figured out where the Grinch went wrong – i.e. what he truly needed to do stop Christmas from coming to the Hoos.

"Not possible!", you say? Well, the information was paraded in front of us all these years and I finally caught on to it tonight. The Hoos themselves provided the data right here, in the last two lines of the third stanza of Welcome Christmas both at the beginning and end of the holiday saga:

Welcome, Welcome
Fah who rah-moose
Welcome, Welcome
Dah who dah-moose
Christmas day is in our grasp
So long as we have hands to clasp

I added the emphasis and therein lies what he needed to do to prevent them from getting Christmas - seco manus.

He was willing to staple antlers to a dog, but obviously the Grinch was not nearly as horrible as a three decker saurkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce and his soul was not really that much of an apalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable since he had the means, motive and opportunity to put and end to Christmas once and for all, yet chose not to cross that line.

Yes, in the actual epic ending we learn that he was not a completely lost creature from the start, but this confirms that the depths of his cruelty were not nearly as large as we were led to believe. This puts the whole story into a much different context and I will have a completely different perspective when I view it again.

Because we're not in Kansas Pennsylvania anymore, we had to do a bit of searching to see what our options were near the new diggs. Since Washington is the evergreen state, we didn't expect there to be much of a problem finding a tree farm.

Our search took us to Carnation Tree Farm in Carnation, WA – a really small but charming town not far from Redmond. It was chilly (frost on the ground) but crystal clear (I mean, pouring rain and gray...you really don't want to move out here...really). We managed to get an early-ish start & stopped at Starbucks for caffeine "breakfast". We took the 522 to the 405 to 202 and wound our way up and down to the farm. After we bagged our quarry, the kids feasted on hot cider and fresh cookies.

As far as tree farms go, we did have many choices and one of the features that led us to Carnation was their recycling program....well, that and they offered to shake and bail the kids for free (great fun!).

You can see the full complement of pix over @ this Flickr set and I'll have a YouTube video of our 6-minute "hunt" posted as soon as the uploading and conversion is finished.

UPDATE: Upload finished. Should be available below: