MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

Spending Christmas with my family, or my wife's family, in Salt Lake City, Utah. It's beautiful up here, in the high valley, surrounded by snow capped mountains and driving on snow capped roads.

We're with Rosie's kids, spouses, and grandkids. Everybody's wonderful, and I'm sinking into a relaxed glad-to-be-on-vacation feeling.

And then, the gifts. A gyroscopic exercise ball from Justin and Beth, tool kit from Chad and Adrienne, ABBA CD from Zack and Lydia (surely at the suggestion of my wife) and a wonderful little camera from my wife.

It's wonderful because, first of all, it's from my wife. Also, it's a Canon. A Canon A590. It uses regular AA batteries so I never run out of power. And it's got an eye level optical viewfinder so you hold your face right up to the camera as surely the Good Lord, in her wisdom, intended. I've been running it in the aperture priority mode, trying to coax a little less depth of field from this little thing.

For my wife: A bathrobe, space heater for her bathroom, bowl mixer, flaming night lights, wooden spoons, salad scissors/choppers and a traveling pepper grinder,

For step grandson: army camo shoulder bag, whistle, para cord, tool man, NATO mess utensils kit, compass,

For my step granddaughter: storage clipboard with art supplies and big pad, and a big stack of coloring books.

For Stepson: a bag of really strong un-ground coffee.

For Stepdaughterinlaw: a nautical sweatshirt hoodie thing.

For Stepdaughter: a deluxe garlic press, and garlic.

For stepsoninlaw: a household battery storage rack, with batteries.

And someone got me beef jerky, but I forget who.

Granddaughter and daughter-in-law played with Barbies in the afternoon. Zack came by with his Harrison Ford action figure and joined the game. He and Indiana Jones beat up all the Barbies and then left. The Barbies resumed the game where they'd left off.

The big blizzards in the forecast didn't come but it's snowing a little and looks pretty. And there are three more nights of Hanukkah.

And to all, a good night.