I'll let you, the reader, decide what should rhyme with that.
We're in Florida this year for Christmas. My parents are well, we're well, and the girls are seven and five years old, which is basically peak Wonder of Christmas time, so I imagine they're pretty happy. Either way, they're very cute, albeit hopped up on holiday excitement and sugar and too little sleep. They made and decorated gingerbread cookies with Grandma today. We had Chinese food for supper, per A.'s family's tradition. We went to a local service - missing our own back home, I think, but its technical difficulties and other minor blips made for some brief discussion with the girls about how unexpected parts of the first Christmas must have been.
I got an emailed Christmas letter from Dr. Strong, which included - he said as a present to all of those reading, but especially his wife - Wendell Berry's "VII" at the end. I sent back Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Third and Final Continent," one of my favorites from my grad school readings for Dr. Strehle.
This year, I left the job I'd had for another at a different college. I work at two of its multiple campuses; one of them is right in my own community, if technically two towns over. The job didn't have the smoothest start, but now I'm in a groove and it's pretty good. I have applied for an advising job at that same community campus, but even if I don't get it, I'll be all right staying where I am for the present.
Not every Christmas to come will be as good as this, I know. I wish it could be. But this is so good, and I'm so grateful.