Good Grief! It's Almost Christmas!

For reasons I really don't understand, it just hasn't felt like Christmas here.  We decorated later than the last few years, but earlier than we used to before we got our artificial tree in 2017.  I've been using my traditional Christmas mug for a week. 

As an aside, that Springfield Armory XD mouse pad gave up the ghost earlier this year, replaced with radio-related pad that is less comfortable, less padded and not as well shaped. As I've said before, I refer to this as drinking out of the skulls of my enemies. Except that snowmen aren't my enemies. I've never even seen one in real life. No snowmen have ever plotted attacks on me or my family. That I know of. 

I could just regurgitate some of my favorite posts in an effort to enhance the Christmas spirit, or my Christmas spirit.  How about the two pictures I've posted the most?

Found linked on Pinterest, the Great Sargasso Sea of the Internet, where you can wander for hours amid images both sublime and stupid - or both. No true source credited. The original URL from when I ran across the picture years ago is dead.

This one is probably the one I've posted most, but I haven't counted.  Credited to Glenn McCoy cartoons in the bottom right.  More here - I think.

Last year, I remarked that the last launch before Christmas was a Vega C that failed when its second stage took over.  Coincidentally, that was today's date, the 20th.  This year, we have a Falcon 9 scheduled for Friday night at 11:00 PM EST from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral SFS, and another scheduled for Saturday morning 7:56 AM EST from SLC-4E at Vandenberg SFB.  Unless I'm forgetting something, those will be SpaceX's 94th and 95th launches of the year.  

Next Thursday, Dec. 28, the Falcon Heavy USSF-52 launch of the X-37B is scheduled to launch at 7:00 PM EST from LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center.  Because of the three Falcon 9 boosters, I believe they count that as three launches, getting them to 98 for the year.  Followed by another launch from Vandenberg on Friday the 29th at 12:09 AM EST (so call it the night of Dec. 28).  And there are still three more Falcon 9 launches listed without a time, just listed as No Earlier Than December at NextSpaceflight.com.  It would be truly remarkable to turn around one of those pads to get to their 100th launch this year.  I don't think they've done it in two days before.