Merry Christmas!

I made a massive Christmas Eve dinner (the weather obliged by being chilly and damp, almost like winter). We gave our Christmas Eve presents. (There's another batch, in the stockings, for Christmas morning -- thus do we blend our family traditions!) I'm watching a Lessons and Carols service on television. Houston has a midnight service at which he will be accompanying the soloist, but Margaret and I will stay home; we'll all go to church tomorrow (Christmas) morning.

I've spent most of the last 11 Christmases very, very, very far from my family, and you'd think I'd be getting used to it by now.