In keeping with the spirit of the holiday season — the one about good will to all men, that is — I thought I’d share this story. It did give me a little hope we’re not as close-minded as we seem sometimes.
If you don’t want to discuss that, how about sharing what you got for Christmas?
Get The Picture 
For me personally, what I “got” is another year on this earth, living in a great country, enjoying freedom and with increasing wisdom of appreciation each year as I get older.
Do we live in interesting times? Absolutely. But I don’t let the noise dictate how I go about my day-to-day life. Love every day like it’s your last, show love and compassion to everyone you interact with and enjoy the small things in life (which are truly blessings as I get older).
Understanding that knowledge to apply every day is truly enjoyable.
And the Sonos speakers yesterday morning from the family estrogen weren’t bad 😉
EmoryDawg
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Nice post. 100% agree.
Hope everyone is having a nice holiday and enjoys some good games this weekend. Even if our offense is a stage 5 dumpster fire right now I’m still looking forward to watching the dawgs play one last time before another long off-season.
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Merry Christmas to all!
On Christmas eve, we hosted brunch.
I got a house jammed with family…kids and grand children!
Everyone was lovely and happy to see one another!
It was wonderful!
The recruiting class is also nice.
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Great article, Senator. As one who spends a good bit on time at our campus for something other than 6-7 Saturdays per year, I’m always impressed with the students I meet.
For Christmas, my wife and I gave each other (and our other 2 daughters) a trip to Orlando, so this wouldn’t be the first Christmas our family wasn’t together. My daughter has to work later today, but the fact we’re together this morning is as good as it gets.
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This is for Macallan Lover. I got a 21 yo Balvenie that was finished in port casks.
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Shocking news: Edward Aschoff died from complications of pneumonia.
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Are you serious? If so, that is terrible news.
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Very sad news.
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Thanks for sharing the story, it provides hope for the coming year. A link to his book is here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/548196/touching-the-dragon-by-james-hatch-and-christian-dandrea/
Merry Christmas to all
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Beautiful morning on Smith Mountain Lake. It will break 40 in a minute and I’ll hike down to the dock and see if I get luckier than I already am!
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Where on SML? We’re at R13…Merry Christmas!!!
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You too, we have an AirBNB with a Goodview Address. If I were not for GPS we would have NEVER found this place! Not a soul in site for 3 days!
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Are you flying UGA flags? We saw on SUV with them yesterday.
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I lived in martinsville then Clifton forge. Motorbiked all over there
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Whoa! We love SML, and the entire Roanoke/SML region is, IMO, one of the absolute best places in America. We plan on retiring somewhere in the area in a few decades, and we get down there as often as possible. FYI we spent a few years in South Roanoke (Peakwood) before heading further north. Miss the area greatly but we will be back.
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We did the Christmas Buffet at the Hotel Roanoke!
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That place is nirvana.
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WOW! Great read Senator, thanks for sharing that!
Merry Christmas guys!
Proud to be an American🇺🇸
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I got a few trinkets and a nice new UGA windbreaker, but the biggest thing I got was the joy of watching my girls open presents and be excited. This is the first year that both of them know the “truth” about Santa, and it was interesting how much more grateful they seemed this year, knowing that it was all from mom and dad. I’m fortunate to have two really good kids.
Great article, enjoyed the read and couldn’t agree more. Would be great if there were more discussions in this country and less arguments.
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Recieved peace from Jesus and dire want to help the poor and downtrodden.
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Recieved peace from Jesus and dire want to help the poor and downtrodden.
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Thanks for posting. As someone that is guilty of condemning the younger generation, I greatly enjoyed the read.
We’d all be a lot better if we took the time to actually “hear” what someone is saying and not what a news outlet or social media post is saying about them.
Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanza, Happy Festivus!
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As with anything, the confirmation bias of our own experiences isn’t representative of reality anymore than social media. There’s good, there’s bad, and there’s everything in between. I just hope James’s new classmates don’t catch him wearing the “wrong” kind of Halloween costume. His experience may change.
Merry Christmas you filthy animals, and Go Dawgs!
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Thank you, Michael, for that link. It was something we all need to read.
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Great article, Senator. Thank you for linking to it. Happy Hannukah to you and your family, Merry Christmas, happy holidays or seasons greeting to the rest of you scamps!
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And with an intelligent daughter that swings far left if center, I’m learning a lot about listening and opening my mind.
And I got another year of good health and normal living thanks to the amazing doctors and staff at MD Anderson. If any of you are so inclined, please consider them in your charitable giving. Another great organization is Heifer.org, who gives cows, goats, or other livestock to villagers in need around the world, to “teach them to fish”.
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Tannerite. as a joke(?). From my oldest son (Finance, Terry Business College 2019. Go Dawgs!) He, his little brother, and I disposed of some old paint with it a couple of years ago. We didn’t mention it to Got Sr., their Grandpa who found the mess later, so they got to witness their first multi generational ass chewing: “”Y’all got bleeping paint all over half the got-damn farm. What the bleep were you thinking and who the bleep is going to clean this up?” (paraphrased). Turns out he was just mad we didn’t include him. 🙂
I’m fortunate to have great kids, beautiful wife, close family, a job I would do for free, and a very close relationship with my Old Man.
The Cowdog side of the family comes over tonight, we are opening a ham grown on the farm I’ve been curing for 2 years. There will be bloody marys, good food, profane conversation, and general good-willery I hope you and all yours can experience in your own way with the ones you love. Be of good cheer, fellow Dawgs!
Thanks for the effort on the blog, Senator. It’s a gift that truly keeps on giving.
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One never forgets the first time they hit tannerite with a long gun. Been a while, might need to do it again…..
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That was an uplifting tale that was in keeping with the holiday spirit. We should all attempt to understand alternative opinions. Being optimistic is easy when viewing life from an ivory tower, but reality always delivers a boot to your fourth point of contact. Experience teaches that you can be so open minded your brains fall out.
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“To me there is no dishonor in being wrong and learning. There is dishonor in willful ignorance and there is dishonor in disrespect.”
Great words.
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Thank you for this great story. I’ve said for quite a few years now that America isn’t as divided as it seems, and all the noise eminating from social media spots like Twitter are literally from .01% of Americans. The rest are going about their daily lives and couldn’t care less about getting into the social media muck hi.
Speaking of Twitter, less than 8% of Americans use the platform with any consistency, and something like 92% of the content on Twitter stems from the top 5% of users. In other words, we are talking about a very small subset of users responsible for most of the ‘outrage,’ yet most treat it as the bellwether of how America feels as a whole.
I’m lucky to have a very diverse group of friends that includes every spectrum imaginable, and when we get together, none of us sit around talking about Trump, homophobia, white privilege (sic), or any other so-called hot topics that enrage the masses elsewhere. We treat each other by their individual characteristic – not their group identity – and we even poke fun at each other to boot constantly.
If we all treated each other in the same fashion, the world would be a far better place.
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Amen to your last sentence. I hope you have a great 2020.
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I think you nailed it. The media obsesses over people being “wronged”. Most of us just go about our daily lives trying to make America better for our children. Merry Christmas.
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I’m 76 years old. I become a Dawg fan, even before I knew they had a thing to do with the University of Georgia. When I was around 10 yrs old, developed an interest in how radios worked and ended up with a lot of junk ones that I would try to fix. One Sat. I was in my little shop in the back of the barn messing with my radios, when one sprang to life locked on to a football game. It was Georgia vs Vanderbilt. All I knew was that I lived in Georgia. As one Ed Thilenius painted word pictures of the action, I converted to the Bulldog church. From Zeke to Fran, to Preston, Ray & Andy …. all past and present players & coaches, from Butts, Dooley and now Kirby … thanks for being a wonderful part of my life ever since.
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Great story! Merry Christmas, sir!
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That’s what we need more of in this great country…less time forming views from the media and more time learning from other people’s perspectives.
Merry Christmas!
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We need to get facts from the profession media and not social media.
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In the world we live in it’s difficult to find “professional media”. I’m old enough to remember when media was very different.
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Got to have all my children and the one grandchild in the home at one time for Christmas Dinner. Best. Christmas. Ever.
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Thank you sharing this article. It gives me hope. People treat politics like a football game with winners and losers but it is not. We are all in this together and need to respect each other. We need to relearn compromise and problem solving.
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Merry Christmas to everyone here.
Best gift I got today was a new pair of Georgia Boots.
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thanks for sharing, senator. great article. i majored in comp. lit. at georgia, surrounded by my artsy fartsy friends for all of my college stint. i would always branch off to a game by myself and sit with my folks. there was such a divide between the two sides of athens. it was nice when i’d run into some kid at the co-op who had watched the dawgs play. merry christmas, y’all.
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Good stuff senator – thanks for the link.
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Thanks for the article. I enjoyed it, and it speaks to the central thing that makes our country so awesome.
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