There's a general split in category between Philosophical and Scientific. In the Scientific category I got a Great Courses on the Hubble Space Telescope, a book on Epigenetics, and some other things I can't recall right now. In Philosophy, I got Aristotle for Everybody, Ideal, For the New Intellectual, and Sophie's World (which I'm curious about reading). In addition, I'm fairly certain there's some things coming in the mail too, so hopefully I'll get Intro to Objectivism.
It will be well into May by the time I finish with these! :)

Well, I wasn't as lucky as you were in managing to dodge the Christmas dinner invitations, but the one that my husband and I went to was fine....lots of good food and politically like-minded people. My favorite gift was given to me by my son... a subscription to Rush's 24/7 website. Merry Christmas everyone!

You happy solstice reminds me of one my wife sent me last week. It said:
Q: Why don't pagans get mad and insist on people saying "Happy Yule"?
A: "Probably because we aren't assholes."

:)

What books did you get Sarah? Quick and easy is the best kind of dinners in my opinion.

Merry Christmas Herb. That's pretty cool meeting a relative you just learned about. Hope it goes well. Be pretty wild if they are an Ayn Rand fan.

Enjoy the camping trip. It's great to get away. I grew up near a park so I could just walk into the woods and relax whenever life got too weird.

That is really cool. Very creative and sounds like a lot of fun. We don't have to take the dumb stuff seriously.

Sounds like a great day. Ribs sound delicious. We did steaks on the grill. Took advantage of the nice weather.

Wow Timelord that is disappointing. Not sure why people do things like that. I hope you have a great Solstice and at least your family was together.

I've spent my day with my brother and mother, who are doing their best to be cheerful while my father glowers in his chair. We opened presents earlier this morning and we just finished eating a quick, easy Christmas dinner. I plan on spending the rest of the day diving into the two-foot-high stack of books I received. (I'm not exaggerating.)

Family time and alone time. Excellent.

I work retail so I look forward to calm and relaxing. Enjoy the cheer and Merry Christmas.

Too late. You answered something. :-) Merry Christmas Michael.

Some great family time there.

I am dino~
Hear me ROAR
(I'd beat my chest like King Kong but my arms are too small. Hardly as pathetic as T-Rex, though).

Same to you. Our Celebrating is at a minimum, mostly in our minds cause like all holidays...I'm working...but there's plenty of cheer here.

Merry Christmas to you, too. Spent time with some of my wife's family today, will be seeing more of her family tomorrow, and my family Sunday. But most of the time will be just my wife and me, enjoying some time to ourselves.

Going to the neighbor's house for Christmas lasagna. But for her it's an occasion to have company over and share good food, not a religious occasion.

The receptionist at one of my doctors' offices said, "Merry Christmas" to me a week ago and I replied like I always do, with "Happy Solstice!" I had to explain what the solstice was and that I "celebrated" it because it meant the days start to get longer. Then she apologized for saying merry christmas. "No, sweetie, you don't need to apologize. You can say merry christmas to me all day long; it doesn't bother me at all."

I went to my dad's on christmas eve. He had a bad stroke about 4 years ago on Dec 12. Had a nice dinner of teriyaki chicken that my sister made and I even convinced my brother-in-law to eat at the table with us (he normally slips back to their living area downstairs). It was a rare occasion where my sister was in a talkative mood and we had a pleasant visit. But it was the first year that my dad didn't seem to truly grasp that it was christmas and I could barely coax him into opening his presents.

I'll close with a short lament about a couple of specific Christians, his pastor and the widowed wife of his best friend. My dad was a very active member of his evangelical baptist church, donated thousands of dollars to it and was one of a small crew that built the physical church building about 15 years ago. For the first year after the stroke his pastor came around pretty much weekly. My sister took him to church about every other week, it's a struggle to get him in and out of the car. Skip ahead to present day and his pastor rarely shows up for a visit. Very christian of him.

The woman, coincidentally named Mary, has been our friend since the mid 1960's. She, her Navy husband and three kids lived across the street from us. The kids were the same age as my brother and I so we were best friends for years. Her husband and my dad were very close and liked a lot of the same things, could both fix anything and just got along great. Right after my dad's stroke she never drove the paltry 8 miles to the hospital to see him - until I stopped by and kidnapped her. I did the same thing several times while he was in rehab for 3 months. She lives less than 2 miles away and has been to visit him at his house about 3 times. I'm sure it's upsetting to her, but for a woman who claims to have a very strong faith in god and drives to church every week she sure isn't demonstrating very christian behavior. He loves visitors and even though dementia is taking over he still recognizes people he's known for a long time and can hold reasonable conversations with them, especially if they focus on things from the past. He won't remember they were there 30 minutes later but he enjoys it while they're there.

How disappointing that these two people, very close friends with my dad for many years, and claiming to be devout christians, and they don't even come for a 30 minute visit.

Thanks!

My wife, two daughters, and I lounge around the house doing whatever we feel like doing. So far today the girls are coloring and I am playing Warframe on my PS4. And ribs. I'm smoking some baby backs on the egg in about an hour.

My husband and I host an annual Christmas Eve get-together for our friends who help us produce our games and sell them at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. Three are Jewish, one a Mormon, five atheists, a couple of semi-christians and several indifferents. Only snacks are served, and only edible gifts may be brought. Our houseguest, Elijah, made up a couple of platters of crackers and cheese that looked like one of our puzzle sets, in an actual solution. It was almost too nice to eat, for the first minute, anyway.

The special thing for the evening is that we have an 8-foot tree we built of plywood, with live candles. At one point we light all the candles, turn off all lights in the house, and enjoy a quiet, introspective moment of peace and love. I get to make a little speech of appreciation for these wonderful friends, and to any newcomers point out the symbolism of this ceremony:

-- Evergreens were special to the ancient pagans for whom it represented life continuing through the cold, dark months;
-- The solstice was celebrated for the return of the sun;
-- Later cultures celebrated the birthday of some mythical figure (possibly an extraterrestrial) who wanted to save humanity by bringing love and peace back into the world.
-- Birthdays are marked with making a wish and blowing out candles on a cake.

So our little activity is a mélange of all those symbolisms, as our guests get to make a silent wish and meditate on it, then blow out one candle. The candles go out one by one, and there are a few extra ones to dedicate to absent friends or, sometimes, dear departed who should not be forgotten. The tallest blokes are tasked with blowing out the highest candles. See the tree here: http://www.gamepuzzles.com/xmascard.htm

Each year there is a different formula for the order in which attendees take their turn. This year it was for how long any pair had been together. We had newly-weds on hand, though the unattached (count 0) got to go up first. This game was rigged so my husband and I, at 45 years, would get to be last.

After this solemn/hilarious interlude I give out paychecks, gifts, special mementos and a choice of interesting finds from all the art shows where I exhibit and bring home cool stuff, like left-handed spatulas or home-made flavored lip balm or dried-vegetable-filled trivets. We also made up a special gizmo as stocking stuffers this year that everyone got, whether they wanted it or not (http://www.gamepuzzles.com/spinners.h.... The puzzle-minded also get to rifle through my box of new puzzle acquisitions.

One of the mementos is given to the participants of a special game the crew plays behind the scenes at the Renaissance Festival: a bound volume of the entire script of 9 weekends of episodes of "Sequitur" on nice parchment. You are welcome to adopt this game for any group of your own. Just please mention it was invented by Kate Jones. Rules are here: http://www.gamepuzzles.com/tlog/tlog4...

The hardiest guests stay for lively conversations until 4AM. One of our people was born on Dec. 25, so he gets cash equal to his years in various nefarious forms. For his 53rd birthday he received a box of 5300 pennies. For his 65th it was all gold dollars. This year brought him 67 dollar bills rolled up into 67tight little cylinders.

I wish all Gulchers a sane, happy, rational, convivial holiday season and the energy to make next year better all around. And keep laughter in your lives. We don't have to take any of the dumb stuff seriously.

Hi Jan isnt it great when dogs can truly be dogs.
You're a cool Jan, you are thoughtful and always have your head screwed on the right way.
Best for 2016