Twelve miles and 2 hours til X-mas!

Pretty much the only things I have standing between me and Christmas are a 12 mile road march and 2 hours of safety briefings. It's supposed to be half days Monday and Tuesday, but we'll see whether that happens. I have a feeling it may end up being half days for some of the soldiers, but there's no way I see myself having half days. I'm sure something thrilling is going to come up between now and then.
Luckily this weekend has been pretty quiet. We had a Christmas reception for all the officers and senior non-commissioned officers in the battalion on Saturday night, which involved having an open bar that no one really wanted to take advantage of because who wants to risk doing something stupid in that sort of company, and standing around in dress blues waiting for the commander to make his speech for the evening so that we could start making our good-byes and leave.
But hey, my Christmas shopping is pretty much just about done, so at least I'm starting to feel caught up for the season. It's beginning to feel like Christmas, minus the fact that it got up to 50 degrees here at Ft. Drum today, not that I'm complaining because it beats the heck out of the weather this time last year.