Well, here we are. Christmas weekend. Last SNT of the holiday season. First off, thanks to everyone who helped make this place a festive December stop. Doing the Advent Calendar's been a real blast this year, thanks largely in part to having had some serious time off from work this month, which was also a blast. That makes two blasts. Your unwavering holiday spirit within all the comments threads and surveys helped me keep mine even though it's like friggin' summertime outside right now, and that's a blast, too. Three blasts. Lots of blasts. Twelve blasts of Christmas.
I've been doing this site long enough to know that traffic usually dips hardcore on Christmas Eve and Christmas, so for those of you about to take off for an extended weekend of Yuletide Yuleness, I wish you the hap hap happiest Christmas you ever did have. I think that something most of us here have in common is the neverending belief that this should be and will forever be the most important time of year, no matter how much things change, no matter how old we get and no matter how much "real life" wants us to treat it like any other regular smattering of days off. And while we may no longer be able to spend weeks on end forging Christmas wish lists and renegotiating our entire schedule to make sure we catch every last snowy special on television, we do what we can, when we can, and we're happier for it.
Tomorrow, my family will gather together and eat fourteen courses of fish and pasta, gab, drink and open presents, just as it has done for decades upon decades. At points, I'll be a pig in shit. At other points, I'll ask myself, "Is this really it?" But, when it's all over and I'm going through those post-holiday blues as January draws near, I'll reflect upon December and know that most of this year's top drawer memories happened in that month -- not in March, not in July, and not even in October.
So crank up the jukebox while it's still chic to do so, drink some eggnog before it becomes old hat, and find your favorite DVDs that end on a shot of Santa's sleigh silhouetted in a night sky. Don't put off now what can be done next Christmas; a year is a long fucking time to wait.
Speaking of eggnog, yours truly has never actually tasted the stuff...until this morning. I don't have any real good excuse for this, because eggnog has always fascinated me. I guess the problem is that I've read enough eggnog recipes to know that its ingredients shock and appall me, but God damn it, the 2006 season needs its hallmark, and where nothing else will take the podium, I guess it's going to have to be me drinking eggnog for the very first time.
After adding enough cinnamon to mask even a cup full of a horse shit, I took a tentative sip and...hey now, it really isn't that bad! Kind of like liquid cake! We don't have any brandy in the house, but now I'm really itching to try the stuff the proper way, which is to say, the way by which I will become twice as gregarious and red-nosed.
The Advent Calendar is up to date. Happy SNT!
Posted by Matt on 12/23/2006. E-mail me!
Chestnuts roasted by 
Fan-friggity-tastic AC today, Matt! I raise a hefty mug of Egg Nog to you, sir!
Merry Christmas!