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Just because of the nature of my job in news, I have worked my share of holidays and missed out on being home for a lot of those special days...My Christmas would sometimes be a couple of days earlier or several days later...

Over the past few years, I've taken Christmas week off, and it's always nice to go home to Blackshear to spend December 25th with family and friends...

I am quite fond of random observations...Here are a few from my six days in Blackshear...

• No one in Blackshear wishes you happy holidays...In the stores there, the workers always say Merry Christmas...While shopping in Savannah before going home, all I heard here was happy holidays...Maybe it's the corporate culture of not wanting to offend anyone, but the last time I checked the calendar, I see December 25th is marked Christmas...So I hope everyone had a nice Hanukkah or a Merry Christmas...Now we're into Kwanzaa, and in just a few days, we'll tear a sheet off the calendar and start a new year...

• It is still strange doing Christmas duties that were always taken care of by my dad...It's now been five Christmases since we lost him, but it just doesn't feel right...

• You don't drive down the road and pass a stranger...More often than not, you will get a wave or a flip of the finger to signal hello as you roll past one another...

• I always get a kick out of driving mom around to look at Christmas lights...

• A Christmas Story marathon became of favorite in the Jones household on Christmas Eve many years ago...Mom and I sat through it once again Thursday night...I even watched it again before getting into bed so Santa could come...I think I saw it five or six times throughout the course of the 24-hour marathon...

• I love the aroma of M&M cookies and sausage balls coming from mom's kitchen...

• A nice Christmas Eve at First Baptist Church...A short and sweet service to remind all of what we're supposed to be celebrating...It's not the art of shopping, sniffing out deals or getting gifts...

• While opening gifts on Christmas morning, mom turns to me and says "look there's something else behind your chair...Be careful, and don't shoot your eye out."  Nicely played...It was not a Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!
  

• Another good thing about being back in Blackshear: walking outside and seeing stars...No city lights and no sounds of traffic racing by make for relaxing nights...

• So the day took too long to get here and went by far too quickly...As I jokingly told my sister after we exchanged our presents, "Christmas is over. Get your stuff and get out."