The Hammock Blog

If you need to reach a specific person, several folks have provided contact information on their People pages. Again, almost everyone checks their email daily, as well.

Never ones to miss a party, we started our celebration of the season in mid-December at our Hammock holiday party (a long-standing Hammock tradition and one not to be missed). Cole and Summer Huggins were in attendance from Austin, Texas, as was Shannon McRae of Dothan, Ala. Enjoy the slideshow, featuring a number of us in silly hats from our Christmas crackers.

Happy holidays from all of us at Hammock--and best of the New Year to you for 2008!

The January-February 2008 issue of Semper Fi: The Magazine of the Marine Corps League is headed for the presses this week, and will be arriving in the homes of some 70,000 Marine Corps League members in early January.

The issue also reports on the League's 27th annual Modern Day Marine Expo held aboard Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va. in early October. The Expo, and its cousins held in January at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and in April at Camp Lejeune, N.C., bring military suppliers together with Marines who use their equipment. More than just a show and tell for the vendors, the Expos allow the Marines to speak with the suppliers about what works and what doesn't. And when you are talking about something that can literally save your life and those of your fellow Marines, the talk is direct and to the point.

Update: Have you received your T-shirt and would like to add it to our map? You can find the Our T-shirt World Map at this address: Hammock.com/tshirt.

This year, our annual tradition of giving friends a Hammock T-shirt is going global. For the past 16 years, we've shared an annual edition T-shirt with lots of people we work with throughout the year. They're often packaged in fun, creative ways. As we began to consider a new T-shirt (to go along with a new website and some new spin on our logo and graphics), we decided to make our T-shirt sharing a little more interactive.

So this year, there's a little string attached to our T-shirt sharing. We're asking the recipients to email or upload (or send us a snapshot via snail mail) a photo of themselves wearing the T-shirt, wherever they happen to be. With those photos, we will create a world map that shows how our T-shirts pop up around the world.

More importantly, we want this year's T-shirt to help encourage another type of global connection. Since we're all about sharing stories here at Hammock, we decided to use our T-shirt tradition to support some children who are ready to tell their own. For every five photos added to the map, we're donating one laptop to the educational efforts of the One Laptop Per Child Foundation in developing countries. (Up to 20 laptops!)

When faced with a tough decision, do you mull it over for weeks or go with your gut? Do you feel comfortable with your decision once you've made it? These are the questions we asked several of the subjects featured in the December/January 2008 issue of MyBusiness, the magazine Hammock publishes for the National Federation of Independent Business.

What we found in our feature "The Power of Trust" was that small-business owners listen to their instincts to help them make important decisions about their businesses, but deliberation is still necessary.

We also talked to some small-business owners who make their communities as much of a priority as their businesses in our inspiring feature "Like a Good Neighbor."

Check out these stories and more in the latest issue, including a staff favorite on how one Arizona business creates success by blending into the crowd—a crowd of trees, that is.

No, we didn't play "Pin the Tail on Rudolph" this morning at the Hammock headquarters overlooking West End Avenue -- even though Ben really wanted to -- just a simple game of Word Association. I decided it might be fun if I grabbed my Big Chief tablet and No. 2 pencil to make my way around the office for some fun with words. When I simply said "holiday tradition" to my fellow Hammoratians (or are we Hammockites?), this is what I heard in return:

Laura Creekmore: Baking. Just like every other holiday, Christmas is about food at my house. Last night, my daughter and I made cookies for her teachers. Before the year is out, we'll have made more cookies, fudge, caramel and any number of other treats. We have a number of recipes we only make during the holidays -- many of them a carryover from my own childhood -- and it wouldn't be Christmas without them!

Jamie Roberts: Watching "Christmas Vacation" or "A Christmas Story" together. Attending Christmas Eve services in my hometown. Being jumped awake by my niece and nephew on Christmas morning.

Bill Hudgins: For a number of years, we have been part of the local Rotary Club's shopping for kids -- about 120 kids plus Rotarians and spouses, Interact members (high school Rotary) and others invade Wal-Mart at 6 a.m. My wife, who is the Rotarian, takes photos and I wrap presents. Christmas Eve church service. Hanging icicle lights on the fence in front of our house. Fruitcake.

Lena Basha: My mom and I would ride around the night before Christmas and look at all of the lights, and when we'd see some, I would exclaim "Shine on! I saw it first!" I'm not sure what that meant. Still don't. But I still say it!

Barbara Mathieson: John and I watch "Christmas Vacation" every year. It's one movie that always cracks me up. We don't do the gift-thing anymore. On Christmas Eve, we go out for a nice dinner. On Christmas Day, we have a midday meal with his parents.

Ben Stewart: On Christmas Eve, my father's side of the family gets together to exchange gifts, joke around and play games. It's the one time of the year where everyone is present for the party. Usually new-comers to the family get broken into the "craziness."

Megan Goodchild: For the last 10 years I've lived 500 miles away from my family and have rarely made it back home for the holidays, so I've been adopted by my friends' families around the holidays. For the last several years I've spent Christmas with my boyfriend's family, who have always welcomed me as one of their own. They do it up right, too -- lots of ham, turkey and adult beverages! Then after dinner we get together with friends and usually watch a movie or go bowling.

Patrick Ragsdale: Eating Christmas dinner at a gas station. We did this for over 10 years since we always drove back to Nashville from Indianapolis on Christmas day.

Lynne Boyer: Christmas Eve, one of the youngest in our family reads "Twas the Night Before Christmas" for the family. We'll see if my son, 6 years old, is up for the challenge this year. Christmas brunch with my family, of course followed a few hours later by Christmas dinner.

Lisa Ask: Golden Rod Eggs. My great-grandmother invented this brunch item. She was a great storyteller who lived during the depression. She made a cream sauce out of the egg whites and poured the whites over an English muffin. Then she'd crumble the egg yolks (the Golden Rod) over the top. She made this very inexpensive meal for Easter and Christmas, but told the family that it was food that royalty ate to make it more special. Golden Rod Eggs are still a staple at Christmas. Now, however, we have ham, tomatoes and other delicious fixin's.

Rex Hammock: Each year, my family has breakfast on Christmas Eve at Nashville's Pancake Pantry restaurant. This got started back when our children were very young and Christmas Eve meant lots of stressful last-minute errands and massive projects related to those three words parents of young children always dread: "Some assembly necessary." We discovered it was good to attack the day fortified with a hearty breakfast. And the tradition was established. Somehow, our Christmas Eves have mellowed a bit (teenage recipients of gifts can assemble things themselves) as post-breakfast activities now usually include naps. (Bonus tradition: Blogging about Christmas Eve breakfast at the Pancake Pantry: 2004, 2006.

For me, it's all about the pajamas. I participate in adopting a family every year and there is always good food. But for as long as I can remember -- it's got to be the longest-standing tradition for our family -- my sweet Gran would give us a single present to unwrap on Christmas Eve. It was and is always pajamas. A couple of years ago, mine had monkeys on them. In the past they've been spotted like a leopard, plaid like Christmas wrapping paper, or solid blue in a shade she thought brought out the color of my eyes. No matter what the pajamas looked like, we all hit the tree Christmas morning dressed in our finest newest pajamas, ready for whatever the day would bring.

What about you? Are there movies, food or fuzzy slippers that the holiday season just wouldn't be the same without?