A Big Fat Bucket of What If?

What if our ancestor was a traitor to the crown? What if he turned to the American side during the
War of 1812? What does it matter? It may make all the difference to years of research into an elusive character who single handedly stops everyone looking for the McCombs' family roots. 

My mom started researching our family history over 25 years ago as a hobby. Opening box upon box of old photos and letters she began putting the pieces together of our family history. We joined in and had a great time with it all. She eventually traced out lineage to France in the fifteen hundreds on one side, and back to 1765 New England on another. Eventually mom received her United Empire Loyalist certificate through her research, a designation you may receive if you have UEL ancestors, or  in English, those who left the colonies during the American Revolution to stay loyal to the crown.

John McCombs, my Fourth Great Uncle,
son of Timothy McCombs

Many of my ancestors on both families fought in the Revolution and in the war of 1812. The UEL members left the areas of New York, Vermont and Pennsylvania and came to Canada as refugees, most earning claims of land from the crown. These claims centred around the Niagara Peninsula. The Depew family, who were traced to France, were granted land at Stipes Inlet in what is now present day Hamilton. My ancestral land is currently home to a massive steel mill on the coast of Lake Ontario. I'd love to find documentation proving that so I can kick them out! The steel mill even moved the family graveyard when they took over the inlet, all burials of the Depew family moved to the Hamilton Cemetery. 

One Depew ancestor, Capt. John Depew, was a member of the Indian Department and fought with the infamous Butler's Rangers in the Niagara area, alongside other family members. The Rangers were famous for cross border raids fighting indian style, raiding American units deep inside US territory.

The McCombs' line equally moved here to settle. Land claims in Thorald and Pelham indicate they were here prior to the War of 1812. When war broke out again, they joined up. Michael, my fourth great-grandfather, and his brother John, joined the Lincoln Militia and fought against the invading Americans. There is even a rumour floating around that they helped carry the mortally wounded General Sir Isaac Brock off the battlefield after the battle of Queenston Heights. After the war the brothers were granted land by the crown in honour of their service. Thousands of other men also won this honour, which is how most of the area of the Peninsula was settled. Many of the families who started farms, mills and other businesses in the area were veterans. Today, their descendants still own large swaths of land granted to soldiers. Names like Ryerson, Ball, Johnson, Dennis, Lutz, Decew, Secord, Lundy and more. Names that still resonate in the area. 

The brothers McCombs father, Timothy, is the problem. Everything stops with him. He was born in 1876 in The US, residing in Bennington Vermont in 1792 with his wife Sarah (or Sally). He bore many children, most notably John, 1792-1865, Michael, 1802-1887 (my ancestor), and Hiram, 1813-1876. There were more, but these are confirmed. Michael was born in Elizethtown, Upper Canada, present day Brockville. So they moved from the states to Canada sometime between 1795 and 1802. From there they moved to the Niagara region prior to the war. Muster rolls from 1812 indicated that Timothy could not join because he was 47 years old and "infirm". From that we can deduce his birth year. He appears on the 1804 Elizethtown census with Sally, John, Samuel, Sylvester, Michael, Sarah, Stephen, and Cornelius. On the 1807 census, Sally, Sam, other Sally, Sarah, Stephen and Cornelius are missing. So we presume that he lost his wife by then, and a number of his children moved away.

That's all we have on Timothy and Sally. And it's been driving us nuts for years. There are many McCombs' family lines in the US and several here. Their genealogies are well documented and many have speculated over time that there is a common thread between the family lines. The problem is nobody has ever been able to link the families together. There are McCombs in dozens of US states, all the way to California. There are also many stories of heroic deeds and major accomplishments. McCombs in varying spellings (MaComb, McComb, McCoombs, MacComb, and other soundex variants) have been generals, politicians, doctors, and much more. We've had clergymen, landowners, spies, and the lot. 

Was Timothy a spy? It may be so. There is speculation about Timothy's activities and loyalties during the War of 1812. Based on a document called "The Bloody Insizes", Timothy is rumoured to have been an American spy and in 1813 crossed to the US side. He became a traitor in the eyes of the crown and a bounty placed on his head. This is where it gets fun, he may also have changed his name.  No wonder we can't find him! Logically a name change would not have been out of the question. Names at that time were changing all the time anyway for a few reasons. First off, people changed their names to fit in better with a certain social hierarchy, so Timothy is rumoured to have changed his name to better suit a "Scots-Irish" connection, actually adding the "Mc" to his name "Combs". If that's the case, then we've been looking for the wrong name all along. What if he was born Timothy Combs in 1765? Secondly, names were screwed up on census records because people were often illiterate and couldn't spell even their own names. Often times land grants were signed with a person's "mark", not name. Census takers of the time wrote down names based on what they heard, not read. Therefore names changed all the time. 

This makes research annoying as hell. 

So what if he changed his name? What if he was a spy? What if we've been barking up the wrong tree for years? We put down the research a few years ago because the sources had dried up and other professional researchers were at the same stumbling block. Everything just hit a wall. To this day not one researcher has connected the families together, but there is a common thread, a man named "BL_K MCCOMBS", Part of his name is illegible. (A Genealogical Register of the McComb Family in America, PHK McComb, Indianapolis, 1913) is said to be the progenitor of the family in America and Canada, immigrating to New York from Antrim Ireland prior to 1732. But that's just one theory. he many not have been the first. Whoever was the first spread the seeds across North America and finally down to our little part of heaven, Windsor.

So we're rekindling our curiosity. At least I am. I have dozens of research documents on the family collected from dozens of sources, as the history nut that I am I have no problem whiling away my days pouring through old notes, letters, land grants, probate records and bible pages. Maybe we'll crack the code? Maybe we'll drive ourselves insane? Who knows, but on we go, chasing ghosts of the past to find out who we really are.

Cheers.

Did Hitler Escape?

Hitler and his wife Eva Braun killed themselves in the Fuhrerbunker as the Soviet army approached on April 30, 1945. Or did they? It's commonly accepted that this is historical fact. The Russians captured the bunker soon after and within days Admiral Donitz, Hitler's successor, surrendered the remnants of the Third Reich to the allied forces ending World War II. As a student of history I've had a long morbid fascination with the nazis. It's kind of like watching a disgusting evil train very slowly crashing, you just have to watch. So of course when I found some articles lately hinting at Hitler's survival I was nevertheless, intrigued. Bear with me here, I'll lay it out, and let you decide. This gets interesting real fast.

Note: I began linking research but stopped. There’s tons online if you choose to read more. If I linked everything, this entire article would be blue underlines.

Accepted History

On April 29, 1945 with the Soviets approaching, Hitler and Braun were married in the bunker in a civil service. His witnesses were his top nazi henchmen, Himmler, Bormann, Goebbels, and other top men. The next day, Hitler shot himself and Braun took a cyanide capsule. Their bodies were taken outside, coated in petrol and burned as per the Fuhrer's orders. The bodies were not to be recovered and put on display as Mussolini's was in 1943. When the Soviets captured the bunker they found the bodies and identified them as Hitler and Braun. The remains disappeared. The Soviets also found another body identified as Hitler, not burned, but with a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. Inside the bunker they found the remains of the entire Goebbels family, all poisoned. Himmler escaped and was captured by the British on May 3, but he too, took cyanide. Bormann was reportedly killed in the street fighting as he tried to escape. His body was not found where the witness to his death indicated. There were others, but they were not key players. American intelligence officer Hugh Trevor Roper was tasked with laying out the final days in the bunker. He ended up writing the definitive book on the subject, which is still used today.

Accepted Truths About The Time

1. After the war an organization known as "ODESSA" was established to assist former SS men escaping the crumbling Reich. Thousands of men escaped. Of the million SS members during the war only about 15,000 were ever captured and even fewer tried. ODESSA (Organization Der Ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen) or in English, The Organization of Former SS Members, was a secret group, and only a handful of documents relating to their existence has ever been found. ODESSA was outed by famous nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. ODESSA helped men escape to Spain, South America and other places through establish smuggling routes through Italy.

2. The most notorious of these escapees were Adolph Eichmann, who was captured by Israeli agents in 1960 in Buenes Aires, and Josef Mengele - the so called “Angel of Death”. Mengele was never captured, but lived his life in peace in Paraguay and Brazil until his death in 1979. 

3. Argentina had a huge German population, with many settlements based on German cities, such as New Berlin. Ironically enough, it was also home to around 45,000 German jews who escaped the nazis.

4. Hitler had friends at a place called “Hotel Eden” in La Falda Argentina. the Eichorns. They often travelled to Germany during the war and met with Hitler. Hitler gifted them a Mercedes, the first of it’s kind in Argentina. Eden hosted many notable people in it’s heyday, even Einstein. And it’s well known that the owners were nazi sympathizers.

5. German U boats, U-977 and U-530 surrendered to the Argentine navy in July and August 1945. Of the 470 boats remaining at the end of the war, 218 were scuttled, 154 surrendered. These figures are still debated today. Regardless of who counted, many are unaccounted for.

6. Paraguay’s dictator during the war, Morinigo, was a strong nazi sympathizer.

Potential History

Hitler's double, shot in the forehead, Berlin, 1945

Let’s put two and two together. First of all, the Soviets never released any evidence of Hitler’s body. They said they found it, but that’s all. In 2009 American researchers performed DNA tests on skull fragments the Soviets claimed were Hitler, but the tests indicated the fragment was that of a 40-year old women. The Soviets also claimed to have had a picture of Hitler’s body, not burned, with a bullet in the forehead. It turns out that was one of Hitler’s doubles killed to push people off the trail. If it was Hitler, why was the wound in the middle of the forehead? An odd place to shoot yourself. This double was murdered. The Soviets locked up the bunker shortly after that and refused allied entry. All other evidence was taken. At the Yalta Conference of 1945, Stalin told Roosevelt and Churchill that Hitler probably disappeared to Argentina.

Next, there’s the ODESSA connection. It’s entirely conceivable that Hitler and Braun were spirited away by this secretive group. Evidence proves they had already done so with many others. The generally accepted claim is that he was taken to Trondheim Norway and from there escaped on a U Boat, maybe, U-530 or U-977, both of which ended up in Argentina.

In 1945 witnesses in Buenes Aires saw a group of about 50 people disembark from a german submarine in the harbour and board buses. A second submarine apparently held Hitler and Braun, who according to them were “unmistakable”. These buses left with their passengers and the subs were turned over to the Argentine navy.

Hitler apparently photographed in 1947

Then there’s the Hotel Eden link. Hitler was friends with the owners, Ida and Walter Eichhorn. They already hosted top nazis during the war and it’s not inconceivable that they hosted Hitler after. Workers at the hotel testified to seeing him there in 1947, but were sworn to secrecy. He apparently appeared clean shaven and with whitish hair. He was residing in a house called “Residencia Inalco”, near a little town called Villa La Angostura, a secluded house only visible by the nearby lake, otherwise shrouded in trees. The house was apparently built in 1943 by architect Alejandro Bustillo, who also built houses for other nazi refugees who were later apprehended in the area. He is said to have lived there until his death in the mid 1960s, under heavy security.

The FBI have even said, in unclassified documents, that Hitler escaped to Argentina. Google it, there’s many sources online. 

Finally, only slightly related is the case of Martin Bormann. A witness indicated he was shot during his escape in Berlin after he left the bunker. His body was never found. Years later workers excavated the area where Bormann was said to have been killed and unearthed his skeleton, DNA confirmed it. However, his bones had clay residue stuck to it that was no native to the area, or anywhere in Germany for that matter, the clay was native to Paraguay. The story is that he escaped to South America via ODESSA and settled down, passing away in 1959 of cancer. His old buddy Mengele was called to treat him, but there was nothing they could do. He was buried in a local cemetery and his grave is still known to locals. But tests last year by someone doubting the story had the grave scanned with ground penetrating radar and found it empty. Were Bormann’s bones reburied in Berlin? Or was the original claim true. Nobody really knows.

Hitler in old age? Photo is unattributed and unproven,
but reportedly taken in the 1960s

Why is this important? Because the case of Martin Bormann can easily prove there are many sides to the story. When you add it up, Bormann, Eichmann, Melgele were all in South America. Why then does the story of Hitler have to end in Berlin on April 30, 1945? It doesn’t. The evidence is there to speculate on his living a quiet unassuming life in a small Argentine town.

While I’d like to think that Hitler got what he deserved, there’s a part of me that thinks he got what he wanted, escape. For Hitler and Braun to live out they’re days in peace while planning the Fourth Reich is a nightmare, but there’s strong evidence that he actually did that. To this day there is no further evidence of his death. The bunker has been destroyed, his bones were refuted, and anything further has been covered up by the Soviet and East German regimes during the cold war. Even now with Germany reunited there is no evidence. Not for lack of searching, which is why the bones weren’t tested until 2009. Solid evidence exists for the rest of his cronies, I fail to understand why Hitler’s fate would be so different. He was a paranoid insane man bent on world domination. He wasn’t one to go quietly, and I don’t think he did until old age caught up with him.

Media Censorship and the Obvious Alternatives

Lately I've been surfing for alternative news. Not because I'm a whack-a-doodle, but more because I've essentially completed the internet. I've reached the last page and I'm starting over. I'm a newsy, always have been. I start everyday with coffee and BBC, CBC, CNN, CTV, whatever. As long as it fills my desperate need to be informed about my ever changing world, I tune in and read absolutely everything, even the comments. But lately I've been bored, so I end up looking for off-the-grid stuff. Alternative news that isn't published in the mainstream. 

Some of it's entertaining and makes you shake your head, like this guy...
Or disturbing to the masses and makes you wonder why you hadn't heard the story. Like this... Of course some just scare the hell out of you even though you can be a clear minded logical person, like this...

Take these stories with a grain of salt. I'm not endorsing them, but what they did do was make me hungry for information. Once you read one of these off-beat articles you begin to scan the rest of the page to see what other "news" is linked. Some of them are on the money, like the story of the girls killed by the police. Why isn't this in the headlines on CNN? Last year police in the US killed over 1,000 people. (http://thefreethoughtproject.com/data-shows-1000-people-killed-cops-2014/) Yet CNN chooses to post stories of celebrities doing stupid things, football, parodies and the like. This morning, among the news you would expect to see on the landing page are 15 stories about anything related to football. Think about that for a minute. 15 stories on football from the number one news site in America. Nothing about cops killing unarmed people. So I go elsewhere for news. I hate football.

Facebook feeds news. That's wonderful, but not. Facebook news is directly tied to your content. Your location, page likes, things you've commented on, etc. The algorithm used to feed you news depends on your interests, and in theory that's great, but you end up with crap. Of the ten news tidbits on my feed today, five are related to celebrities. Yesterday at least that many were - you guessed it - football. I hate football. Did I say that already? Sorry. If the algorithm is so accurate why am I getting that junk? 

There's one thing about getting your news from FB that does work, people find and post interesting stories they've come across. Most times these stories are worth the read especially if your friend posting it has like views. But there's this problem, 90% of anyone's friends are in the same general area you are. So again, they have the same problem in that the focus is too narrow. It's the 10% I rely on to find out things I can't get where I am.

Then of course, there's the wingnuts who post things you just have to shake your head at. Right wing, left wing, conspiracy theories, or just plain dumb. These guys are worth checking out, there's no shortage of them out there, but you really have to go into these sites with your brain turned on. Pick through the obvious garbage and you'll find interesting tidbits here and there. Yesterday I spent time on a FB page called The Anti-Media. They claim to be a grassroots revolutionary media site. Yup, uh, wait, nope. They're wingnuts true through. They are truthers, claiming 9-11 was a hoax, they're anarchists, anti-government free-roving hippies. So what! They have some good stories every now and then, like this one... Read it carefully and you see the point - the CIA lied for years about the dangers of waterboarding and other torture methods used since 9-11. Again, read carefully using at least a portion of your brain, there's still garbage in there that needs to be picked through. But this story was never in any mainstream media that I saw, and it was well worth the read in the sense that it ties into mainstream concerns.

I also follow Anonymous. The hacker group with it's own agenda for what they say is the betterment of free speech in the world. I like their take on justice, or what they feel should be justice. I don't necessarily buy into the stories posted on the site but they have good intentions. Case in point, Anonymous shut down ISIS' twitter accounts, took a ton of radical websites offline, and declared war on the KKK, taking down their online presence. This was in response to the klan's activities following the Ferguson shooting of Michael Brown. The klan reportedly was heading to Ferguson to take part in the protests but with their own agenda - incitement. Whether you believe them or not, nobody has the right to incite hatred against anyone else. Anonymous may not have been right to do that, and yes, they break the law, but they act in a manner that is pro-moral, pro-speech. I'm going to get ribbed for that opinion. 

Then there's the just plain stupid. 

You have to read this junk for the sheer enjoyment of it. Idiotic news that makes you laugh. It's a nice digression from the mundane everyday war, killing, famine, pestilence stuff. Things like this... Or, this idiot...

There's a nasty world out the window. Our computers have become the new window to that world. We are infused with things each day that scare us or make us think. I prefer the latter. I prefer to read into what people are shovelling down my gullet, calling it news, and pick the items I want to know about, and that ain't football, thanks CNN. (NFL?) I've taken some ribbing lately because of my views, and I don't mind that, it starts good debates. What I do mind however, is people telling me what to think instead of encouraging me to use the brain God gave me. We all have opinions, that's what makes us free people. ISIS, nazis, bolsheviks, and the North Korean government subscribed to the idea that people should only think in terms of the government line. We're better than that. But are we really free to think? Or are we only thinking about what is being fed to us through the mainstream? I've seen many articles in alternative sources that theorize that the large news corporations are controlled by the government. Well, yup, it's called censorship, and it's always been there. But now with the advent of social media the censorship doesn't work all that well, and that's good for us. It's given us freedoms we didn't know we had. Embrace that. Make the world a better place by using it, just do it with a few brain cells.

Cheers.

Fuck Being Sick

Screw it. I don't want to anymore. I don't want to be sick. So I won't.

People with cancer, heart disease or any other deadly ailment can say that and if they put their minds to it can make a difference in their well being, but frankly state of mind only goes so far. People living with life threatening diseases can only go so far in pushing back. Frame of mind can change one's game plan with the attitude towards the illness, but can't do much about the physical disruption to the body. Changing the attitude means aggressive treatment instead of giving up. My condition is not like that. The positive attitude can make all the difference.

So fuck it, I don't want to be sick anymore.

I'm Bipolar, which means I can switch from an ecstatic manic high to a horrible sinking low depression in no time at all. It's more annoying than anything else. It's kinda hard to plan your day when you don't know if you're going to give up living at 2pm and at 5pm start an expedition to Mount Everest. At one point a few years ago I was researching realtors, I planned on selling the house and moving to Scotland. Not for any other reason than it seemed like a good idea at the time. In my mind the family would have figured it out soon enough, when the sign went on the lawn. Meh.

Then I sunk low. Crying constantly, not getting out of bed, throwing things out, life became, well, meh. Then there's the panic and anxiety attacks which are completely debilitating. A feeling of complete and overwhelming fear grips me and forces me down. I can't move except for the uncontrollable shaking. Cold sweats, pain in all limbs, screaming at nothing, ignoring all who try to help, I've even smashed my head in one of these and not known it. Then, suddenly, sleep. The attacks always knock me out for hours.

I've been living with this for five years now, and thank you, I'm done. Fuck it.

Every therapist, doctor, support group and family member I've talked to over the past years has given me the same advise, and I've been too damn stubborn to take it. Get involved. That's it. Simple. Get active, find something to take my mind off the problem. It won't ever heal me, I'm with this for life, but I know now I can make a difference in how I suffer with this. I'm finally taking some advise and doing something about it. Fuck it.

I started projects. I started doing things to encourage a tighter and more focused frame of mind. First, I started looking at money. Since I got sick I also got unemployed. That kinda hurt the wallet. Last year the car came off the road which took away my flexibility and independence, not to mention that I really like my car! I still say high to her and pet her when I walk by. Money became a focal point in the illness. I was afraid of anything to do with it and just opening the online banking threw me into an attack. I stopped paying bills. That of course, was stupid. But you couldn't tell me that then. I decided to do something about it, I re-did the entire house budget. I juggled the numbers and found how to save, I threw myself past the anxiety to look for the positive. Instead of counting how much I had to pay out, I started counting how much we were bringing in. A completely new perspective. The problem hasn't been solved but at least now I can look at it with a positive light instead of collapsing.

Then I started learning things. I started researching how to build websites. As a graphic designer I should have done that years ago, but being stubborn and stuck in my ways I opted to stick with traditional media. Many years later I saw that little error and decided to correct it. I've spent the past three months immersed in Adobe Dreamweaver and tutorial videos on HTML5, CSS, PHP, and Java Script. In the grand scheme of things I'm in grade 2 now, so much still to learn, but it allowed me to completely refocus.

Finally, I started writing. A lot. I've written things lately that will never be published, and things I hope to publish in the future. Five years ago I had a story idea. 15,000 words in I lost it, I wrote myself into a corner and shelved it. Yesterday I dusted it off, re-read it, and had an epiphany. Like the preverbal lightbulb going on over my head, I suddenly had the story laid out. 4,963 words and seven hours later I now have focus. For the time I wrote I forgot about being sick, I forgot about ISIS, money, monster storms, Charlie Hebdo, the dog, well, the dog let me know he was still here. Anyway, I immersed myself in the story and let it flow. I felt it was like reading a book with my fingers.

Fuck it, I'll write this illness off.

It's been two weeks since my last attack. two weeks of normality. I've lost my temper at times and fought the anxiety away, but I've fought it! I'm focused on something better now and I don't want to let the demons creep in. I'm not healed, I never will be. I'll live with this the rest of my life, and that's ok, because many that are sick can only say that knowing that the illness is what will take them. Mine won't, unless I fall apart and do something completely ridiculous. Which by the way, is something Bipolar people live with more often than not. I don't want to go there. I'm going to force my life the other direction, one step at a time. 

I may lose the light at some point and fall backwards into the mire of my mind. Like other projects I've undertaken in the past I may shelve these ideas, but now I know something I haven't considered, I can do this! So I put the manuscript away again. I'll start something new. Writing calms me, so I'll start there. Maybe I'll crash and burn on the website idea, so what, I'll dream up something else. I know I have options now, and given the dark places I've been lately there's only one way out, and that's the way up.

Fuck it. I'm normal.

Cheers.

Our Personal Christmas Spirits

Christmas is different now. There's something about it that hurts, and I don't know why I feel the way I do. So I'll try to figure it out as I write this.

I lost my dad five years ago and my mom 12 years ago. Since they've been gone it feels different, a kind of empty something missing feeling. My family is here with me and that feels good. The music's playing, there's a turkey cooking, the presents have been opened and the greetings came in waves this morning from friends and distant family. It all feels like it should. A happy day to celebrate the true meaning of the holiday - thanks.

But something's missing. I miss my parents and the way things were growing up. First of all, my dad was a nut. He was all over Christmas. The house was bedecked in every sort of decoration you could imagine, including dozens of Santas - everything from small ceramic statues to a giant plastic Santa hanging on the front door. We never had a wreath. If we did, it would be covered in Santa's face. There was over 100 of them. Then there was the rest of the decorations. And the tree. Covered in Santas. It was a running joke each year that when dad put everything away there would always be one Santa left out, somewhere. It was always fun to have the kids find it. Eventually he just left it alone, one Santa out all year. Each year it would change.

Dad also was Santa. He was the mall Santa, rang the bell for the Salvation Army campaign, hired himself out to people on Christmas Eve to visit the kids, and always visited the hospital where mom worked to put some cheer into some sick people's hearts. He was the embodiment of the Christmas spirit. And he loved it all, especially the kids. I took him to one gig one year, a rather wealthy man wanted to pay him a good sum to visit his kids at 2am Christmas morning, after midnight mass. He didn't take the money. He did it for the kids.

Mom was in the spirit too, although I still believe she didn't have much of a choice, she married Santa. We called her Mrs. Clause, appropriately. Dad called her SWMBO (pronounced schwambo): this stood for She Who Must Be Obeyed. My wife is now known as schwambo junior. Mom was a very spiritual woman, and ironically, dad wasn't, his spirit came from somewhere else. At least that's the impression he let people have of him, but we knew that without spirituality and faith, he couldn't have been anything like he was. It was in his heart.

Since they left us there's been a hole in our existence. We carry on like family does and deal with our loss. They will always be with us in spirit - their memories are just as important as those of us who are left to remember. We still hang ornaments on the tree that were part of our childhood and my parent's life. We always will. We still sit on their couch, read their books, I'm writing this on mom's desk. They're always going to be with us and everyday I feel that. But today is hard. Today is Christmas Day and they won't break bread with us.

But that's okay. I have to move on with life and realize that our existence on this little blue planet is fleeting. We will all go one day. It's the time we have with each other that matters. I cherish the memories of my childhood and the season. That's a spirit I share now with my children in whatever way I can, except for the Santa heads everywhere, they got a little unnerving. But traditions of old mixed with new traditions come together to mould us into a new family. A little of time gone by with a sense of the future. But above all else this year we never forget how it all began. Our traditions began with the traditions of our parents, as theirs did before them. And so on. Our children will take up the torch once they have families of their own and again the traditions will evolve.

So this year as you gather around your table with your family don't neglect to pay homage to your ancestors. Don't forget to thank them for what you have in your heart this Christmas. I intend to thank mom and dad for their generosity, love and hope. I do that everyday, but at this time of year we all stop and feel the presence of our parents and grandparents. We say Merry Christmas to them as they are still part of our families, even though they may not be here in person, they are still here in spirit.

Merry Christmas.