The years will rush by, and one day you will be watching your son as a man, and feeling incredibly proud that he is caring, safe, making a contribution, and hopefully going far beyond you in the scope of his life.

I know. I'm lazy. But I made myself a New Years resolution that I would write myself something really special. Which means I have 'til December right?

I put the copy of 'A Christmas Carol' that my grandfather had first read to me 60 years ago on my desk and I began to write. The result for better or for worse is the 'Christmas Spirits.' I plan to read it to my grandson.

The upheavals of adolescence silenced 'A Christmas Carol' for a few years. I became a firebrand atheist. Christmas - humbug! Too commercial! Then I became an agnostic. Christmas was a pro-forma affair basically a chore. Buy mother a book dad a new tie my brother and sister small gifts. Pretend thanks for the fountain pens and shirts I received.

Every Christmas now for years I have found myself wondering about the point of the celebration. As the holiday has become more ecumenical and secular it has lost much of the magic that I remember so fondly from childhood.

I'm well-travelled so I can see places coming up. I went to St. Croix in the West Indies at Christmas and it had been hit by a really bad tornado. Values there have gone down but I guarantee they will be up again in eight years. So I'll get in now while it's cheap as chips.

Yeah I started when I was 6 years old. My brother and sister would get all of these presents at Christmas time from the cast and crew of their show and I was jealous. So I decided that I had to become an actor.

When I was eight years old I got a dummy for Christmas and started teaching myself. I got books and records and sat in front of the bathroom mirror practising. I did my first show in the third grade and just kept going there was no reason to quit.

I've been in elementary education for years and my belief is that Christmas pageants in schools are little more than conditioning kids for the Christian religion.

I made a Christmas album a couple of years ago and just put it out on my Web site. It kind of smacked of this flavor. All of the reviews said it was Western swing even when it was Christmas standards.

In the spring of 1994 I decided not to seek reelection to the Senate. I had made the decision 12 years earlier Christmas Day of 1982 just after I had been first elected to a full term that I would do the best I could for a limited time.

My parents still treat Christmas like I'm thirteen years old.

Actually my mother and Alfie came for three weeks' Christmas vacation and stayed for 21 years. I guess my mother never went back because she was lonely.

I'm sure most of us remember being a kid and you have all of this endless time where two weeks before Christmas feels like ten years. I used to go to bed to try and go to sleep to try and make it go faster.

I've been playing on Christmas for the last 10 11 12 years. So just got to get up early with the babies and give them their toys and try to get a nap in and just come to play.

When you have kids you instantly feel that you do not want to do them wrong. Those dads that go off to Florida and start a new life I couldn't imagine that: seeing my kid once every Christmas every three years. If I'm gone for six days it feels like too much.

Santa is our culture's only mythic figure truly believed in by a large percentage of the population. It's a fact that most of the true believers are under eight years old and that's a pity.