Post-holiday recovery

We're still figuring things out, this whole family-of-four thing. But thankfully, our out-of-town guests have gotten out of our town, I'm enjoying a five-day stretch of No Work and the house is slowly getting back into order. Our Sunday school class is killing us with kindness. Incoming! Whoooooooooooooosh! Another attack casserole! We're celebrating a late Christmas with my family Saturday, which should be, um, interesting as always. The usual stuff.

To wrap up 2006 - all in all a pretty good year when you look back from a distance and kind of squint a bit - I offer you 12 thoughts and observations.

1. I attended one holiday college football bowl game and realized that instead of souvenir footballs, I really wish they'd toss souvenir nachos into the stands. Especially around the third quarter when I'm hungry but hemmed in by fellow bowl-goers.

2. There is such a thing as too much Christmas.

3. Do people really mean it when they say "Happy holidays" and "Merry Christmas" and "Happy New Year"? And can those things be quantified? Kind of like when we ask someone, "How are you doing?" Do we really want to know?

4. We've noticed an alarming trend in our neighborhood. There are at least three homes near ours that are vacant. It's like the family vaporized overnight. Whether they're running from extended family or bill collectors, it's kind of sad.

5. In one yard a few blocks from here that was bedecked for Christmas, there was Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus at the end of the walkway. Behind them, on the porch, there was one of those animated/singing Santas. Guess the jolly old elf was one of the wise men or something.

6. Instead of making some vague New Year's resolution about improving my fitness, I'm setting a goal. I'm going to participate in the endurance bicycle ride of the Hotter'N Hell 100 in Wichita Falls. I figure I've got eight or so months to train. I'm not only going to show up, I'm going to finish it.

7. Should I have a garage sale or just dump all our crap off at Goodwill?

8. Out of all the gifts the Cutlet got for Christmas/birthday this year, his favorite seems to be a red Radio Flyer wagon from the late 1970s that was the Petite Filet's.

9. I think I'm ready to start looking for a new job. I had to hang up on somebody this week, and I'm not proud of it. He deserved it, but still ... gotta be something better out there.

10. Even at younger than three weeks old, our little one is developing a personality of his own. He has already peed on my more often than his 4-year-old brother has in four years.

11. Wish I'd been recording video when it came to the Cutlet's birthday cake. We started singing "Happy Birthday" to him and he got all shy and said he didn't want to have a birthday. When we were over, he blew out the candles and touched his tongue to the side of the cake. Such a boy.

12. Next year, we're having Christmas at somebody else's house.