Historical Christmas

I'm back in the saddle and working hard on our upcoming leadership retreat! But before we get to that, I've got to comment on my very historical Christmas. Not historical in the sense that children will one day read about it in a textbook and be forced to endure T/F questions related to its events. Rather, about 90% of my gifts were in some way related to history.

Am I a dork?

It all began when my Mom and Dad came to DC for an early Christmas and gave me the 4-disc director's cut edition of Kingdom of Heaven. While I am very aware of the historical and biographical inaccuracies, I still consider Kingdom of Heaven one of my favorite movies, and the director's cut includes some storylines that were axed from the theatrical release version.

Then, the Mom and Dad Zempel (and Josh) gave me the History Channel's The Civil War Journal. I suppose my Southern heritage defaults me to Civil War buff status, but I think it runs deeper than that. I've always been fascinated by the personalities, philosophies, and theologies of the players in that episode of American History.

Then, Ryan presented his gifts. It began Christmas morning with a a little treasure hunt that ended with the discovery of Digging for the Truth, Season One-- a History Channel archaeological series. The History Channel's Beyond the Da Vinci Code and The Execution of Jesus also showed up under my tree.

I've got over 20 hours of history to watch! Then, I get to watch King Lear and Romeo and Juliet from the Thames Shakespeare Collection.