{"id":1907,"date":"2011-12-01T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alexdemille.com\/nelson\/newsletter-1211\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T17:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T17:56:12","slug":"newsletter-1211","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alexdemille.com\/nelson\/newsletter-1211\/","title":{"rendered":"December 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"nl-banner\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/alexdemille.com\/nelson\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/a-note-from-nelson-banner.jpg\" alt=\"A Note from Nelson\" \/><\/p>\n<p><!--NEWSLETTER--><\/p>\n<p>The Holiday Season is upon us. And I mean upon us; like a five-hundred pound boulder squeezing out our last ounce of energy, our last dollars, and our last drop of patience. With any luck, this will be the last holiday season if indeed the world ends on December 21, 2012. We can only hope.<\/p>\n<p>Just kidding, of course. I love the holidays. In fact, I have a five-year-old son who renews my sense of wonder at Christmas, and in some strange way he makes me a kid again each December. If he believes in Santa, then I believe in Santa. If his eyes brighten at the sight of Christmas lights, then my eyes brighten. And every morning, when he tears down the stairs to find the Elf on the Shelf, I\u2019m as excited as he is, even though I, or his mother, hid the Elf. Same with opening the door on the Advent calendar to find a small toy that brings an ear-to-ear grin to<br \/> his face.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t get me wrong, the world is a tough place. You know it and I know it. But my son doesn\u2019t know it. And neither do his friends, and hopefully neither do any five-year-olds anywhere. They\u2019ll find out soon enough, but for now, the world is a place of magic and wonder; Santa is real, and so is the Elf on the Shelf and Santa\u2019s other helpers, and Mrs. Claus, and flying reindeer, and the Polar Express, and the Miracle on 34th Street and on every street. And if you\u2019re lucky enough to have a kid around, or if you can borrow one for a day or two at Christmas time, then you will be blessed and renewed, and through that child you can recall and relive your own childhood at Christmas when you, too, believed.<\/p>\n<p>Merry Christmas to all, and my sincere wishes for a happy, healthy, and peaceful New Year.<\/p>\n<p>And to my Jewish friends, which include my adult children, Happy Hanukkah.<\/p>\n<p>I leave you with this from Elizabeth Akers\u00a0Allen:<br \/> <em>Backward, turn backward<br \/> O Time in your flight.<br \/> Make me a child again<br \/> Just for tonight!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Peace.<\/p>\n<p><!--END NEWSLETTER--><\/p>\n<p class=\"nl-signature\">Sincerely,<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/alexdemille.com\/nelson\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/nelson-demille-signature.png\" alt=\"Nelson DeMille signature\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Holiday Season is upon us. And I mean upon us; like a five-hundred pound boulder squeezing out our last ounce of energy, our last dollars, and our last drop of patience. With any luck, this will be the last holiday season if indeed the world ends on December 21, 2012. We can only hope. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsletter"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>December 2011 - Nelson DeMille<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"December 2011 - Nelson DeMille\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Holiday Season is upon us. And I mean upon us; like a five-hundred pound boulder squeezing out our last ounce of energy, our last dollars, and our last drop of patience. 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