I sit here by the muted lights of our christmas tree, named Renee, as he is from Quebec. The South Beach diet must've hit up north, as Renee is much thinner and paler than last year's tree, Pierre. Apparently, there is a distinction between Douglass Fir trees and Fraser Firs. True, Douglass Firs (Renee) shed less that Frasers (Pierre), but they also look like they've been eating spinach and navy beans soup for a year. We put on a single ornament and Renee just about fell over. Lucky for us, as of tomorrow we're off to Scotch Plains, New Jersey (Union County, if you are trying to learn your New Jersey geography as much as I am) to celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas. As of Wednesday, as you may have gleaned from dragonhair's blog, we're off to St. Petersburg, Russia to begin our ten-day break from America (which is much needed upon seeing how quickly Mike Huckabee is climbing the polls). The decision to go to St. Petersburg is partly a result of my recent proclamation to attempt a bit more adventure on my average vacation, both in location, reachability, and weather. Four straight beach vacations led us to the winter retreat, and four straight experiences in well-traveled, cruise-ship port towns led us to Russia. St. Petersburg isn't exactly the top of Tibet, but it isn't London either. Hopefully, it shows us something new. It is just a start, however. This trip will launch the travel 2.0 sequence of my next ten years. Intended destinations include Africa (Mt. Kilimanjaro specifically). China, and the Middle East. As much as I like Senor Frogs, I feel I've experienced enough shots poured my whistle-blowing mexican women to last for a least a few months. To capture the specifics of this trip, I am going to incorporate a new feature: The digital voice recorder. This will record thoughts and impressions until I can make it to a computer to do some writing. I do this for you, in the humble hope it will improve my blog writing. Maybe dragonhair will actually allow me use of some his photos for once, to allow for a full multimedia experience. So look for that. In the meantime, in the immortal words of Bing Crosby, happy holidays 2007.