Christmas season is probably the nicest time of the year, with lots of visits from friends whom you do not see very often, and gift-giving which is a nice show of respect and affection. And that says nothing about all the eating, hehe.

I was very pleased with all the former students who came visiting PHS, although I barely had time to talk with most of them (except Nini, who fortunately came at a time when nobody else was there, so she and I had a nice long talk).

This afternoon my entire family is gathering for our annual Christmas Eve dinner and gift-exchange. We have a grab-bag, so each person only buys a gift for one person, a much saner method considering there are currently 22 members of the family (including one fiancé), so if everybody bought a gift for everybody else, we would spend the entire weekend exchanging (not to mention the next three months paying all our shopping bills, haha).

We are staying home for Christmas dinner tomorrow, a tradition we started when the boys were young and wanted to play with their new toys. We’ve seen no reason to change the tradition since, so we’ll have a quiet day at home, which is nice. Perhaps I’ll spend part of the day doing some of the reading and writing I hope to accomplish during my 11-day break.

Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate it!