A Holiday Greeting

There are occasionally little reminders that this is not a normal place.  The cafeteria, more commonly known as the DFAC under the ancient law from Deuteronomy adopted by the military that says that absolutely everything must be referred to by an acronym, preferably one making no sense, is the "dining facility" ("D-FAC").  They put on a special meal for Christmas Day and will do so again for New Year's Day.  It will almost certainly be a roast turkey, which is pretty good.  The whole spread is quite nice, though it's offset by the fact that breakfast is shifted to 0600 - 0800, meaning you have to get up quite early on your nominal day off or wait until 1400 to eat.  Luckily for us, this week's day off, Friday, has a visitor from Washington, so it's a work day.  Tomorrow, New Year's has another visitor, so it's a work day, too.  Anyway, the DFAC was decorated with all sorts of Christmas decor, which was somewhat out of place.  What did stick out like a sore thumb were the candy buildings.  They were very impressive - nothing along the scale of the monumental Candy Cathedral I made for Christmas 1991, which weighed on the order of 40 pounds - but they happened to be candy churches - with crosses.  You don't see a whole lot of crosses in Afghanistan, as a rule.
There were also menus printed on card stock, stolen from another regional command, with a photo of the White House Christmas tree on the cover and a greeting from one of the military commanders.  Most of it was your normal best wishes stuff.  The ending was not one you frequently hear: "Happy Holidays, and Air Assault!"