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Merry Christmas to all!

I always look forward to the Christmas Eve drive from my home in Belleville, Ill., to my mom's farm near Brighton.

Of course, there's the anticipation of celebrating Christmas with my family. Tomorrow morning, I will go to Christmas Mass with my mom at St. Alphonsus Catholic Church in Brighton. After that, we'll make a brief visit to the gravesites of my dad, Henry "Gene" Kramer, and my brother, Wes Kramer. The family gathers at my mom's house to open presents, then we move on to the home of my younger sister, Karen, down in Godfrey for Christmas dinner.

But there is something special about that drive. Christmas Eve is a silent night, a holy night. The drive up Interstate 255 is much more peaceful than it is every other day of the year. It's a reminder that Christ Child continues to change people's lives.

So this Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I hope you, too, will be able to take some moments for silence and peace to reflect upon what you can do to make the world a better place.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Labels: Catholic, Christmas

Roger 1 comments links to this post 10:40 AM

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Happy Holidays from Specialized

For a second straight year, the folks at Specialized have posted their distinctive holiday card: a glockenspiel-free rendition of Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from "The Nutcracker Suite" performed entirely with bicycle parts.

Flip Baber -- aka Johnny Random -- was commissioned to write the Christmas card piece in November 2006. According to a story at BikeBiz.com, the glockenspiel and clarinet melody was created with spokes. The cello and violin pizzicatos were created with plucked derailleur cables. The tingly triangle was a bash on to a disc brake. The percussion was a medley of shifting, coasting, finger over turning spokes, chain pulls, braking, clipping into pedals, back-spinning, and air pssssing out of tires.

The Flash version on the Specialized site is a sharper than the YouTube video shown here, plus you can send it to all your cycling friends!

Thanks to longtime friend and cyclist Doug Kaufman for passing this along to me.

Labels: bicycles, Christmas

Roger 1 comments links to this post 12:51 PM

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Remember the Baby!

For those of us who are Catholic, today was the Fourth Sunday of Advent. I attended Mass today at the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville. Our presider, Father Ed Hauf, stressed the importance of remembering the Baby this Christmas season.

The baby, of course, is Jesus Christ.

Up to now, I did not feel the Christmas spirit. A lot of that is because what passes for "spirit" in the days before Christmas is really little more than commercialization. Too much emphasis is put on the cost of the presents rather than the spirit behind the present.

While it would be nice if there were a Cannondale System Six or a Trek Madone SSL 6.9 bicycle underneath my mom's Christmas tree tomorrow morning, I will be just as happy with less expensive presents because I know there will be plenty of love behind them.

Another reason I didn't catch the spirit earlier is that people aren't sending nearly as many Christmas cards as they once did, and I think that's a sad thing. I'm sure there's plenty of reasons: the expense of cards and postage, the prevalence of e-mail or a simple lack of time. I've noticed over the past five years or so that I receive fewer cards than I did a decade ago, and I know I'm not the only one. Alas, I simply ran out of time this year and did not send as many cards as I usually do. For those of you who are my friends and didn't get a card, please accept my apologies and I hope to do better next year.

But now, I am in the spirit of Christmas. I look forward to the peaceful drive from Belleville to Brighton tonight, I look forward to Christmas Mass tomorrow morning with my mom at my home parish, St. Alphonsus Church in Brighton, Ill., and I look forward to seeing my family. Later in the week, my older sister and her family will come down from the Chicago area to celebrate Christmas and a bunch of family birthdays that surround Christmas. There will be plenty of love to go along.

It is my hope this Christmas that all of you will remember the love and humility that the Baby is all about. Even if you aren't a believer in Christianity, love and humility are fine traits to share with one another. That's what Christmas is really all about.

Labels: Christmas, family

Roger 1 comments links to this post 5:18 PM