Time to pack

Happy holidays! I'll let ya personalize that on your own, whether it's Christmas, Hannakuh, Kawanza, solstice, or fleece sweatshirt day. Whatever it is for you, knock yourself out.

It's Christmas for my family. Angela and I are going to load the pups into the ark - I mean Explorer Sport Trac - at around 3am on Thursday morning and we'll make the trek to Nebraska to see my family. It's been five months since we've seen everybody. I'm certain that I'll be a blubbering mess when it's time to leave again Monday morning. Our nieces Jada and Ciara are heart-melters, and four days with them will surely turn us into a big pile of goo and make the trip home sort of somber. At least until we pop in the new Madonna CD that I just know Angela is getting me for Christmas. That will put me in car-dance mode and I'll be launched straight into happy thoughts. I know she got me at least one CD because I caught her in the music section of Barnes N Noble two weekends ago and she made me leave, and since I have been hinting around about Madonna since mid-October I'm guessing that's the one she snagged. I've been dropping some Josh Groban hints too though. Time will tell.

If there is still snow on the ground in Nebraska (yeah...and if the sky is still blue) we're going sledding! When we were kids we would always go sledding at my Grandma's house and she would have homemade hot chocolate and iced oatmeal cookies ready for us when we came in. We mostly used the steam from the hot chocolate to warm our ice-cold and red faces, because our insides were plenty warm from the layers and layers of flannel, snowsuits, and coats. We didn't mess around. All the layers made us sweat, but the exposed appendages were always mildly frostbitten. Nothing a little of Grandma's hot chocolate couldn't cure. Those were some fun times. I don't think I've been sledding since, so it will be a hoot watching me try to get the hang of it again. I sliced part of my thumb off just standing in the kitchen armed with nothing but a cheese slicer remember. Who knows what I'll do with a sled with metal runners. Maybe Dad will ban me from using those.

Enjoy the season! May you feel the flannel pants and egg nog warm fuzzies, win every board game you play, and get lots of kisses from the peeps and pups that you love. And please God let the Huskers beat Michigan in the Alamo Bowl. I hope your yuletide is really, really gay! Merry Christmas!