Smiling faces, holiday table decorations, and a table full of  festive gift wrapping combined for an enjoyable BBQ dinner, and astronomy discussions as we gathered together in our private dining room.  Tedda made a few announcements about upcoming events.  Cathy lead the Gift Exchange Program.  It worked very well.  We all took a numbered slip from a bowl.  Ray got Number 1 and chose a gift from the table first.  Number 2 chose another pretty astronomical gift, and decided to keep it rather than trading with Number 1.

 As we continued on, we weighed, shook, and considered size before guessing about the contents of the next gift, and once opened, there was plenty of commentary and discussion of  their beauty and/or uses.  Some of us kept and some of us traded.  Eventually we ended up with astronomy books, guide books, calendars, day planners, rockets, sparkly 3-D planet models, stick-on stars, homemade jerky for cold nights, star cookies, etc., We cleaned up, left a nice tip, and held our gifts close as we left into the cool night air.  Many thanks to Cathy for keeping the gifts, givers, and giftees on their toes.

Respectfully submitted,

Tedda Howard

20131228 The Astronomy Club of Augusta planned a Club Dark Sky Star Gaze for Saturday, 5:00PM at NMR-DSO, but once again it was cloudy.  Tedda, Stan, Lalit and Kenneth had a lovely day/evening  eating fried squirrel, checking out the NASA mission ornaments on the Christmas tree, and watching the series of the NASA/Discovery "When We Left Earth, The NASA Missions" videos, courtesy of Lalit.  We originally intended just to watch the first one about the Mercury missions, but as it was cloudy and the videos are so good, we ended up watching all six of the videos!   Never a dull moment, and not a moment wasted!

Respectfully submitted,

Tedda Howard