Karyn and I and our three boys wish you a blessed holiday season. We join you in celebrating family, friends, and faith.

We just today got back to Nashville, and are tonight decorating the tree that we bought on the way home from the airport. Karyn and I enjoyed sharing our very last holiday season in our home in Washington over the last week, buying our "Washington tree" and decorating it and the house extra early this year so we'd have plenty of time to enjoy it with friends as we said our goodbyes. 12 years of memories in that house!!

Over the next couple of weeks, Karyn and I and the boys will be on the go; traveling and visiting with family and friends.

Tomorrow I'm off to South Texas with Harrison and Jonathan for a father-son hunt with Steve Smith and his sons Stephen and Matt. Karyn, the boys and I will then spend the 23rd with Karyn's Mother and sister Trisha and their extended family (45 McLaughlins! at their biannual McLaughlin family Christmas) in Austin. And then back to Nashville for Christmas Day to join the Frist clan. We're rehabing the home I grew up in, but it's not ready so we are living in the backyard in a garage apartment (now beautifully decorated by Karyn!).

Another hunt with the family on the 26th to replicate the traditional southern hunt (at night) that we did exactly four years ago on the night that I became majority leader. And during all of this, Bryan is going to New York to see some of his college friends, Jonathan is welcoming home his girlfriend Ashton who has been studying abroad, and Harrison is slipping off to Houston to see his girlfriend Ashley after our Texas hunt.

The final sojourn for us to Washington will be to particpate in the swearing in of Bob Corker. We are so proud of him and Elizabeth and look forward to lending our support over the coming months and years.

I’ll spend early January talking with and listening to folk around the country on the new focus for my leadership committee Volunteer PAC (VOLPAC) and promise to send along information before the end of the month. In February I’m off on my annual medical mission trip delivering care, doing surgery, and treating AIDS patients in Kenya and Sudan and am so excited that Karyn will join me this year. My work in Africa has always served to center me and ground me in the oneness of humanity. Like everyone, I have read with real concern about Al Qaeda's expanded presence in the Horn of Africa and the spread of radical Islam and fighting in Somalia. And the genocide continues in Darfur where I was last year. Expect a report from me on this and more notes from my trip.

I am convinced that we can use medicine as a currency for peace in this part of the world and elsewhere. I've personally lived it on the ground in Sudan. I’ll share with you a great deal more about this in months to come.

In this season our thoughts and prayers are especially with the troops overseas who are serving away from home during this sacred time of the year. God bless them and God bless their families. Our freedom rests with their sacrifices.

Karyn and I send you and your family warm wishes for a blessed and healthy holiday season!

Bill Frist, M.D.

posted by Dawkins : 12/22/2006 03:08:00 PM