Of course, sometimes the Christmases you remember are sad, like being separated from your family, and I have had several of those related to my work as an Oil and Gas Exploration Geologist. Drilling rigs drill 24/7, 365 days a year, and Christmas is just another workday.

Vertis and I have spent a number of those apart, but that is just understood as being part of my job. Our stay in Libya was over two Christmas, and the first one I was in town, and the second I was on a drilling rig in the desert some 800 miles away from Vertis. When I was in town, we hadn't been in Benghazi long enough to make friends, so we spent Christmas Eve by ourselves listening to Christmas Carols from the BBC via a shortwave radio, and that was a sad time, but that second Christmas we had gone to numerous parties before I left town to go sit wells, and we were seasoned expatriates, and it was just part of working overseas. December in Benghazi was decorated and colored lights were strung up on a large evergreen tree downtown -- not for Christmas, but for Libyan Independence Day in December, which helped us get into celebrating the season.

As a young preteen boy, I focused on the gifts, but my Mother, Sue, would always say, "Now before we open any presents, I'm going to read about the first Christmas. Then we sat down and Mother would open the Bible to Luke's account of the birth of Jesus.

However, today in our Country, the Christmas Season is a lot more than just December........

© El Dorado News Times