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http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/12/from-exact-middle-of-nowhere.html

A day late, perhaps, but no less sincerely, let me wish everyone who reads this a good and blessed Christmas, from here on the snowy side of Cheyenne Mountain. We had a day so cold, clear, and crisp that I was walking around the house carefully, lest it shatter. This was our year to stay in Colorado for the holiday season. (Next year, as is our custom, we'll be in Chicago.) Two thirds of the country had a white Christmas, which is great unless you happen to be traveling while the whitening is going on. Ducked that bullet, whew.

We've had our tree for a week or so now, and it may rank as the best Christmas tree we've ever scored. Tall by our historical standards at about 7', it is also a balsam, a breed of tree I don't think we've ever had in 33 years of marriage. I've been a little leery of them since I was five or six and broke out in a rash on my hands when my mother allowed me to place some ornaments on the tree. Somewhere we have a photo of me hanging ornaments with my winter mittens on, and although history is silent on the point, I have to wonder if some of my poor mother's ornaments didn't survive the adventure.

No rash this time--I guess one can grow out of such things--and the tree is not so full as to make finding places for ornaments a challenge, nor so sparse as to look like Charley Brown's poor twig from the Peanuts TV special. It's taking water and is not yet losing needles. Dash pulled a stuffed Saguaro cactus ornament off the tree and tried to remove its stuffing, but we caught him before he got too far. Jack has been spotted licking the colored light bulbs when they're off, but apart from that there's been no tree mischief.

There was some stress on Tuesday night when Carol's mom fell at her homne outside Chicago and was taken to the hospital. She didn't break anything, fortunately, but had to spend Christmas in a hospital bed. To cheer her up I put an SX270 system on the coffee table by the Christmas tree and set up a Skype video call with my nephew Brian. The hospital has Wi-Fi in the rooms, and Brian set his new laptop up on Delores's bed tray. So by virtue of my Phillips ToUCam and Brian's built-in Webcam, she could see us, the dogs, and the Christmas tree. Delores was delighted, and it's a technique to keep in mind if you find yourself in such a situation. Skype is very good with detecting and autoconfiguring Webcams, and there was no fussing involved. I plugged in the ToUCam, made the call, and video happened. It's not exactly a flying car, but it's definitely one of those odd Sixties dreams fulfilled, mostly when nobody was looking.

We also called my sister and Bill on Bill's laptop, and sang the ABCs song with Katie. Katie looked puzzled, but Julie just beamed. In another couple of years this sort of thing will be second nature to them.

This was a very good year for Lionel trains: I finally bought a modern steam locomotive to run around the tree, and boggled a little to find myself searching underneath the brand-new 4-6-0 MTH Camelback loco (above) for its volume control. It has a built-in electronic sound effects system that plays real steam locomotive sounds, a bell, water-pump thumps, and other racket at deafening volume. Jack backed around the tree as I slowly ran it along the tracks, yapping furiously at it until he got bored. Pete Albrecht unexpectedly sent me a rare artifact indeed: An original Lionel 275W ZW dual-control transformer (right) that was probably made in the midlate 1950s. It works great, and can control two independent track sections and two independent sets of accessories.

Christmas for us really isn't about gifts (and I confess to being a little tired of Santa Claus supersaturation this year) but once again, my spouse knows me well, and bought me an electric blue summer robe to replace my old terrycloth robe that's been falling to pieces for the last ten years. She also presented me with my recent books wantlist: The Long Summer and Fish On Friday, both histories by Brian Fagan, and two popular treatments of decision psychology: Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, and Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. Fagan is the author of The Little Ice Age, and The Long Summer is his followup about the warm period that followed the end of the last ice age.

I bought Carol her fondest wish: A universal TV system remote that allows you to program whatever sequence of steps is required to turn everything on and then pop the drawer for a DVD, all with a single button press. (She's justifiably weary of having a fruit-bowl full of diverse, incompatible, button-riddled remotes on the coffee table.) It's a Logitech Harmony One, and I guess now I have to figure out how to program it. Hey, I know assembly; how hard can it be?

Our friends Jim and Marcia came by for Christmas dinner at 2. We had a spiral ham, Yukon Gold mashed potatoes, spinach salad, home-made apple-pecan bread from Jimi Henton, steamed asparagus, and Carol's signature spiced squash soup with cranraisins floating in it. I opened a Campus Oaks Old Vine Zinfandel 2007, and we had hot spiced cider as well as some Colorado honey mead that Jim brought. We stayed at the table for almost six hours, solving the world's problems and designing the odd universe, and overall considered it an excellent Christmas Day indeed.

Nor is it over. Carol and I celebrate Christmas for at least a week, so for us it's really only beginning. If this is your season (whatever you may call it) to celebrate all that is good in the world, hold that thought--there's no reason at all to stay there for one day only and call it done!

Okay. In the spirit of the OP, I have brought out my old Norse Tarot deck.

My first draw is the High Priestess. A woman, in a high place - a spiritual leader for many. I'm gonna say this is Sylvia Browne. Okay, I'm going to do another three cards here - I think it was a hasty generalisation. I get Justice, the High Priestess (again) and the Queen of Cups, reversed. I think this is consistent with my initial generalisation. Justice shows that Sylvia is finally recognised for what she really is, and this revelation negatively affects her already poor health. The High Priestess merely reinforces the first draw. The Queen of Cups is the mother figure, filled with love and nurture for her children, which is pretty much the opposite of what Sylvia does - that being consistent with the card reversed.

The second is the Prince of Wands. A younger man, dynamic, active - but it comes up reversed. So I'm going to say this is some youngish American rapper who is either shot or dies of a drug overdose. I'm not familiar with the rap scene so I can't tell who it is, but I'll draw three more cards to try and define his personality. The Nine of Wands indicates followers - an entourage or following of some kind. This is consistent with this man being a celebrity - it possibly indicates some kind of cult following. The King of Wands is a father figure - this man's father is also famous. Finally the Prince of Discs is somone who is prepared and confident in the future. I'm still not sure who this is, but he's a self-confident young man with a famous father, who has a following.

Lastly, the Ace of Cups. This is very ambiguous. I can't tell whether this person is male or female, but emotion plays an important role. I'll do another three cards. Oh, this is interesting. The Hanged Man, the Empress and the Six of Coins, reversed. The Hanged Man represents sacrifice - Odin hanging himself on the World Tree, giving up his eye in return for knowledge. So it's someone who suffers for the greater good. Could be Stephen Hawking - he's a very emotional man, but it is very difficult for him to communicate this and he prefers to concentrate on pure physics. The Empress is a strong matriarch - this could be any of the women in his life - possibly his daughter, Lucy, who incidentally is the same age I am. The Six of Coins is a valuable gift given to a loved one. This would be the body of knowledge that Stephen has selflessly granted to the human race, or possibly the selfless giving that his two wives have given to his extraordinarily difficult situation.

So there are my three predictions according to the Norse Tarot:

1. Sylvia Browne
2. Some youngish rapper with a famous father and a following.
3. Stephen Hawking

http://xkcd.com/680/

We've just gotten back Midnight Mass...for small values of "Midnight." Very small values. Ok, ok, I know...I'm not a night person. For me and for today, midnight comes at 4:00 PM. I like to be awake when I worship; inflicting my dreams on God would be cruelty to deity: A few nights ago I dreamed of three life-size crowns of thorns, each of which had three little legs, and the whole group was chasing some poor guy up a steep hill. God's been there and done that; no need to put Him through it again.

And on the CD player is Golden Bough doing a very English sort of Christmas Carol that also mentions Midnight Mass: "Christmas Comes But Once a Year." (The link is to the Clancy Brothers cover, but it has the lyrics.) The song describes the sort of feasting I can barely imagine, especially the line describing "Whiskey handed round in tumblers..."

Wow.

Maybe "tumbler" means something different these days, or to us Yanks. When I was a kid a "tumbler" was what I also called a "jelly glass": a tall, fairly narrow glass that we had because we bought jelly in it at Certified, and after we cleaned out the jelly (which was a week or so's worth of PBJ school lunches) we had a glass. These probably held a pint or maybe a little less; perhaps 12 ounces at very least. They were our everyday drinking glasses, and we used them until we got a little jittery and broke them, one by one.

Jelly no longer comes in useful glasses, but there was a time about twenty-five years ago when peanut butter did. I don't remember the brand, but we bought our peanut butter in glass jars that held about 14 fluid ounces, and after we finished the peanut butter, we washed out the jars and kept them for everyday drinking glasses. We went through a lot of peanut butter in those days, and before we decided that enough was enough, we had twelve glasses in the cabinet.

Then either the peanut butter went away, or we did. (That may have been when we moved to Arizona.) And over the years, I have downed an enormous amount of Diet Mountain Dew in those glasses. One by one, I've gotten jittery and dropped them, and there are now only six. (The half-life of a dozen peanut butter jars used as Mountain Dew glasses is evidently twenty-five years.)

Regardless of what was originally in the glass, 12 or 14 ounces seems like an astonishing amount of whiskey to put away at one meal. I have a bottle of Evan Williams Bourbon Whiskey Egg Nog in the fridge, and typically drink about 50 ml in an evening, which is plenty. Given that it's a 15% cordial, my limit (for 86-proof whiskey, at least) is about .15 X 2.3 X 50, or 17 ml. A hard drinker I am evidently not. (And clearly, not English.)

Or maybe "handed 'round in tumblers" means what my friends used to do with a joint back in the 70s: Pass it from person to person, with each person taking a draw and then passing it on. Or maybe people really do drink 14 ounces of whiskey at one sitting. Again, I boggle.

Doesn't matter. We're about to sit down to a feast of smoked turkey slices, cranberry sauce, and a loaf of home-made apple-pecan bread that Jimi Henton gave us for Christmas. I opened a bottle of Whitewater Hill Sweetheart Red, and poured each of us a glass that might be a full 100 ml. We may go a little nuts later on and have some of the Evan Williams, handed around in (one) peanut-butter jar. I may eat my two allotted slices of Jimi's bread and then cut a third. Hey, Christmas comes but once a year!

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1564

D'awww. Say it with me now: D'AWWWWWWW.

That's it for this week! Tune in tomorrow for a SPECIAL CHRISTMAS SURPRISE, and next week will be a weird little stand-alone story featuring the much-asked-about Sweet Tits.

Time to go frantically wrap presents and pack before our drive down to MD tomorrow. Have a safe holiday everybody!