We cancelled our newspaper for the 10 days we were gone. Consequently, the Washington Post delivered two copies of the paper to our door each day.

I was flipping through selected sections as I sorted the recycling, and came across this gem in the December 22nd Style section “Yule Log” column:

For precisely three weeks a year, the Pentagon allows displays of holiday spirit on its premises, provided they conform to the 12-page “Pentagon Guide for Use of Hallways.” That means no candles, no shouting, no live Christmas trees, no loud music, no hanging things in the windows. “No lights in the hallways, no lights on the doors,” Pentagon Building Manager Michael J. Bryant says. “It’s safety-oriented — all the humbug stuff.”

Two soldiers asked for permission to dress in Santa suits and rappel from the Pentagon roof two years ago. “It was Christmas and they thought it would be a nice thing to do,” says Bryant, who wished he could approve it. “The problem with letting folks do that is then you’ve got Easter and the Easter Bunny wants to rappel, and you have Hanukkah and the Hanukkah guy wants to rappel, and once you start something, there’s no turning it off here.”

This set Husband off on a very funny monologue about his happy childhood memories of the family gathering around the burning dreidel to await the arrival of the Hanukkah Guy, who rappelled down their house each night for eight days. It loses something in the translation and I haven’t had enough coffee to do it justice. Just trust me, it was funny.