Letter From Iraq #16

As another week before Christmas dissolves it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, as the song goes.  The weather station is fully decked out with tinsel, ornaments, and lights, which I just put up today.  We even have a little snow and some icicles.  Well actually they are made of plastic but I figure that I will just have to take what I can get.  All in all it looks pretty festive around here and for being far away from home I have to say, it isn’t too bad.

Actually, I am really proud of myself this year.  Most years, around this time, I always buy Christmas cards, telling myself that I am going to send them out too everyone.  The reality of the matter is that I always find a thousand other things to do and before I know it Christmas is passed and it’s July.  I guess what I could do is just fill them out and send them out in July to make sure that they get there in time.  The Christmas cards that I sent out were actually donated and I got a box of them from the chapel.  They have a lovely seen with pine trees covered in snow surrounded by old wood fences.  It looks just like outside here, with the exception of the fact that we don’t have any pine trees and instead of wooden fences we have beautiful cement barriers with concertina wire on the top.  Oh and then there is the fact that there isn’t a single flake of snow so that kind of kills the picture.  To me the picture kind of looks like it was taken in the mountains of Montana.

This Christmas season I have learned a few things that I feel like sharing with you all because, even though it may be a little late for this year, you may find it very helpful in years to come.  Of course these are things that you wouldn’t usually think about unless you are stuck in the middle of the desert with little more to do than think.

The first thing that I’ve learned is that there is another reason to love Hallmark greeting cards.  The Christmas cards that were donated were produced by Hallmark and so now I have had a little time to test these cards out.  They have the best tasting envelope glue out of any card or other envelope I have ever licked.  They are slightly sweet and they don’t make my tongue feel like I was licking a dry sponge.  Hallmark’s slogan is “When you care enough to spend the very best.”  I think they should change it to “When you have to send a lot of cards and don’t want to run out of saliva.”  It may not be as short or quite as catchy but it gives you a true sense of the product you are buying.

The second thing that I learned is that anything can be turned into a Christmas item.  Recently we got a package here at the weather station from our Squadron back home in Fort Lewis and most of it was normal care package stuff.  There were plenty of little toys and candy in there.  The one item that killed me was the dual purpose candy-toy.  One of them was a reindeer.  In any normal capacity a reindeer is one of the many signs of Christmas.  With this reindeer though I think you have to have a bit of a twisted sense of humor to appreciate it.  The reindeer came with some jelly beans and you load them into the reindeer through it’s head.  Once you have the candy loaded you push down on the reindeer and it poops out the jelly beans.  It is by far one of the most sick and twisted holiday items I have ever seen and at the same time I loved it.  You can’t help but laugh.  The other one that they sent us was a penguin, which by the way lives no where near Santa Clause and the North Pole since they are indigenous to the South Pole. But anyway you load candy into the penguin’s head and then wind it up and as it waddles around it lays little colored candies.  I think it’s supposed to represent penguin poop but I thought it looked more like penguin eggs.

The third thing that I have learned so far this Christmas season is that I hate glitter.  A while back we received a couple of boxes here from a couple of different organizations that wanted to express their gratitude by sending us Christmas stockings stuffed with different things.  It was a nice package to receive, with only one exception.  A lot of the stockings had glitter glued to them as a decoration and doesn’t exactly stay where it is glued.  The bottom of the box had glitter everywhere and all of the stuff that was inside of the box had glitter on it too.  The only reason that this is a problem is that glitter sticks to everything.  We now have glitter everywhere.  When I went through the boxes I ended up with glitter stuck to my hands and face and little pieces of glitter in my hair.  It was also stuck to my uniform.  I looked like I was trying to become a human ornament. 

Now that I have shared with you all that Christmas has to teach I will sign off for another week.  Seeing as this will be my last letter before Christmas, I would like to take a quick second to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.  I hope that it is filled with all of the joy and happiness that the holiday has to offer.  I ask though that you please keep in your thoughts and prayers all of those why may not be having as joyous of a holiday season as you have been fortunate enough to have.  I’m not necessarily talking about military people, but include in your thoughts and prayers all of the poor, the less fortunate, the lonely, and those in despair.  These people need your thoughts and prayers too.

If you have a question that you would like to ask or just want to say Hi feel free to email me at john.iraq@hotmail.com.  If you would like to write and send the letter through the post office my mailing address is:

SSgt Ferderer, John B.

F Co. 5-158 AVN (AF Weather)

FOB Diamondback

APO, AE 09334

Until we meet again, Have A Great Air Force Day!