Merry Christmas

​Merry Christmas to you and your family!  🎄🎄🎄
Christmas tends to be a time of reflection, recalling the blessings in life, recollecting who we are, and refocusing on what is important as we remember the reason for the season. I want you to know that all of you in the Hillsboro Community are important to me by receiving this Christmas message.  Good relationships add so much meaning to life.
Please embrace your family’s customs this Christmas Season. Share the feelings of warmth, happiness, contentedness, and comfort that arises from sharing simple pleasures with friends and family. Simple acts of support can definitely make winter a kinder and cozier season. Remember, there is no such thing as cold weather, only bad clothes, with an attitude like that winter will fly by.  
Please say a prayer to remember our young men and women in uniform - they are incredible. For those that are deployed and in harm’s way, it can be a difficult time of the year. The free world and our freedom depends on them, as there are many forces trying to deny freedom to others… even on our soil. Freedom matters. For those of you with small children, don’t forget to have them track Santa on NORAD’s web site; https://www.noradsanta.org/  When I was stationed at Cheyenne Mountain, monitoring Santa’s progress using NORAD systems was the highlight of our Christmas duties. 
Here is my annual Christmas Holiday closing: think deeply, speak gently, love much, laugh often, work hard, give freely, pray earnestly and be kind. All the best wishes for a joyous and Merry Christmas and a great 2020 filled with health, love, prosperity, and happiness! Hopefully, we all find more wisdom along the way. Let me close with one of my mentors Ten Commandments of Leadership that I think many in the Hillsboro Community practice.
The Ten Commandments of Leadership
1. People are illogical, unreasonable and self-centered.  Love them anyway.
2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Do good anyway.
3. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.  Succeed anyway.
4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.  Do good anyway.
5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.  Be honest and frank anyway.
6. The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest ideas.  Think big anyway.
7. People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs.  Fight for underdogs anyway.
8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.  Build anyway.
9. People who really need help may attack you if you do help them.  Help them anyway.
10. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.  Give the world the best you have anyway.