"Deck the halls with boughs of jolly..."

That's Sarah's version. Not as great as Pogo's immortal "Deck us all with Boston Charlie," but then Walt Kelly's been gone a long time and only a few of us Old Believers still remember that song. (Along with "Good King Sauerkraut looked out, on his feets uneven...") For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, which includes my daughter and perhaps my wife, too bad. But do deck your halls with boughs of jolly.

As the holidays approach with what seems like the speed of an onrushing train, I guess I should update the blog. On Thursday Tam called me at work, to say that Sarah was at the school nurse's, complaining of a headache and running a temperature, and since Tam was preparing for a Friday office move (cleverly timed for just before Christmas!) she needed me to pick up Sarah. Needless to say I did my Daddy-ly duty and did so, though it complicated my attempts to wrap up things I wanted to finish before the weekend. Also, as I normally have Fridays off, I was the one who had to take Sarah to the doctor's on Friday. I did so, but it meant that for about the fourth Friday straight various duties relating to house or family got in the way of getting any work done.

Adding to the complication was the fact that my father-in-law and his companion Marge, who were planning to visit at Christmas along with my sister-in-law, called last week to say that Marge was down with a bad case of flu, and, given their age and the trials of travel (they were connecting through O'Hare on Christmas eve and my father-in-law is an octogenarian; I haven't been through O'Hare at Christmas since the TSA intensified security, but I'd be hesitant even at my age), they felt it wiser not to come. Sarah is disappointed her grandpa won't be coming, but she's eager to see her Aunt Kate, who is coming. So it will be four of us rather than six this Christmas.

Needless to say, the house isn't ready yet (it's the Saturday before Christmas), but there are presents under the tree, and we're making some progress on the house and other stuff.

Since we haven't gotten around to a Christmas letter for several years now, this blog is our replacement; we're trying to let as many relatives as possible know about it. If you're new to this blog, for some reason for those reading it in Firefox, the links and categories have been shoved down to the bottom of the page for a while now, because the earlier posts run across the page for no known reason. It displays properly in Internet Explorer, which I hate; I hope it will straighten out soon. Blogger is free and easy to use but notoriously doesn't have very good tech support: hey, it's free.