Christmas Eve in July

So no taekwondo tonight, as a few of the team members are off to Little Rock, Arkansas to compete in a major competition.  Best of luck to them!  Maddie is keeping in touch with the group on the phone.  Her days are simple lately, with lots of Minecraft and bracelet making.  Mom had her do some cleaning today too.  

It's Christmas in July, or at least Christmas Eve in July - and there's been a lot of that going on with advertising and so forth.  I took advantage of both holidays by ordering my yearly ornaments from the White House Historical Association.  They're not doing a new Presidential one this year for Ronald Reagan, but rather using the ornament to honor the Presidential china.  Next year, I suppose, will be Ronald Reagan's year, which make sense in a way, because we're running low on Presidents.  I'm sure back in 1981 when all this started, they were talking to themselves about how far from then it would be until we'd "catch up" with whoever is currently the President.  Let's see:  at the current pace, if we don't honor White House china anymore, we should go Reagan in 2026, Bush in 2027, Clinton in 2028, Bush in 2029, Obama in 2030, Trump in 2031, Biden in 2032, and then perhaps another Trump in 2033, and if whoever is next is a two-term President, we could be caught up there and then! 

I have no idea why I just typed all that.  Except to say, I didn't order the White House china ornament, but rather backtracked and got eight previous ornaments with seven Presidents.  Yes, I'm almost to the place where I'm caught up.  I went back to 1990, to Martin Van Buren's ornament.  I've got them all on the Patriotic Summer Tree right now, which is starting to look crowded!

Along those lines, we were talking today and I got some ideas for Christmas movies for Mom this year, new Hallmark ones to add to the collection, some recommended "must-see" movies.  We also did a new Christmas song for the AI generator, something we've decided to do again this year - yes, we're doing another competition for AI-generated Christmas songs. We write in the lyrics and try to get some more Christmas classics.  Already I have a few made for December, including one this week based on "Jingle All the Way," and another completely epic song sung by Forte from "Beauty and the Beast Enchanted Christmas."

 

Moving on from Christmas:  Tonight we watched a few episodes of "House of David," as we march quickly through this eight-part story.  It's not precisely Biblical, but it's close and it's enjoyable enough.  The giants are certainly intimidating.  Stuck in a cave, they sort of remind me of that other movie with the really big giants, "Big Friendly Giant."  We've got about four more episodes to go, but Saul is off his rocker and David is pushing the envelope a little with his rights as a human being.  But God's favor is on him, of course, and that part of the story is right on.  

Meanwhile, we're reading in 1 Samuel, and we're also working on our newest series.  Got a lot more done today in that regard.  We're telling the story of David, adding a few "Inside Out" characters for flavor.  Check out this version of "Joy" that AI created:

Pretty fun!  It was a good day today, although not huge on fun activities and so-forth.  We would have been at the Inn at Christmas Place today, but instead we're getting a lot of work done on this booklet.  It'll be good.  We closed out the day reading from our story from the Discworld, and saying our prayers.  

And to all, a good night!