Well, it's Christmas Eve! Officially! Plooky plockily! I still need to buy a few presents, I still need to shave for the first time since 1937, and I still need to stuff 50 mushrooms with breadcrumbs, garlic, oil and my top secret ingredient. I am not ready. But, I have lots of wine. And sake. And eggnog.

Thanks for spending another holiday season with X-E! The 2009 Advent Calendar is complete! This year's was a soul-sucking sacrifice to get done, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and I'm glad that when I'm seeing stars from the wine/sake/eggnog twelve hours from now, I'll be able to think of those stupid little characters having a merry Christmas instead of being eaten by crabs. Ironically, we'll have just finished eating crabs ourselves by then. Their legs, anyway.

Full disclosure: Really wish I would've had time to post more "normal" holiday stuff this season -- that's my one regret. Well, that and the fact that we were too busy and frantic to even get a Christmas Tree. And that I didn't use the foot of snow we got to build an ice fort. Yay, wine. I had to focus on the AC, because once that thing gets away from me, there's no catching up. Hopefully we can do some more "standard" celebrating between now and New Year's?

Your support is so appreciated -- thanks again for making this dinosaur of a site still worth mashing my hands on an ash-encrusted keyboard for after all these many years. Have a great holiday, and please use the comments to talk about your own Christmas celebrations -- the parties, the people, the traditions, and all of that shiny new plastic.

I've gotta go find a razor, scotch tape, and a department store that's still open. Below: Random happy pictures.

I'll see ya for the Fallout Thread -- have a good one!