and goodbye to all that {again, again}

Someone was a *little* nervous leading up to Christmas ... which I would be, too, if I had certain issues with being rotten.


Still, there's alway Grandma and Aunties with their parcels from out west to act as a sort of safety net for the troubled and naughty and little people who wreck all of daddy's things.


Disturbingly, many of these parcels contain books, and *someone* likes to read -- a habit we're going to have to work hard to break.


And so we settled in (yes, that's my foot) for a day of celebrating the birth of the world's most famous carpenter (?) and there was much talk of a floating fat man in red pajamas (?) and eating of Mandarin oranges (?) and later turkey (?) and kindness and goodwill and feeling grateful that we weren't trapped in some airport where Christmas, every year, is like some psychic Armageddon.


And only one (well, maybe one and a half -- it was kind of a running battle) days of fighting this year! It's a Christmas miracle!