I can’t say it was the merriest Christmas ever, but I can’t really say it was all that bad. Taking into account that the birth of Christ has been the pretext for about a third of all human suffering in the last two thousand years, I don’t know what there is to celebrate, but most years I would go and have a Christmas dinner with my family over at Ginny’s house, complete with sweet potato casserole and such delights as one might find in a Better Homes and Gardens recipe book. Not to knock that. It was novel, and expertly prepared, which were both only part of the reason Ginny’s dinner is/was something to look forward to. It was also the sitting around the classic WASP tableau, with the fireplace burning, the kids all excited and so forth, not to mention the warmth of family and all.

So it was a little goyish with the tree. Big deal

Anyway, this year was my first break from that, and Christmas was spent with my broken wife writing me instructions on 3x5 cards, since, in addition to her surgery, she has lost her voice. So what might pass for fun was primarily the simple things, like taking a shower or something. But in a last minute plan, we had dinner guests, Sam and Wendy, who prepared a whole meal and came over to serve it. Which was a nice thing to have happen. Sam is a recent Soviet immigrant, who, though he lives in San Francisco , just returned from a fellowship in NASA doing Astrobiology, whatever that is. Wendy is a chemist who works with water. Either way, they made a mean lasagna, not to mention a salad with all sorts of gourmet leanings, like chevre, walnuts, baby spinach and balsamic. Sam used to be a chef and was deeply disturbed when I showed him the biohazard bag in the fridge with my honey’s rib in it. I’m not really sure what the plan is with that thing.

And the Sam and Wendy drop in weren’t our only Christmas miracle, we also got a visit from the Grafs, who were in town, with Milo , their extremely cute baby in tow. He’s less than one. They are planning to move to Egypt , which, naturally, I tried to talk them out of, but Annie seems deeply invested in wanderlust. Which is cool, but I’m opposed to wanderlust that involves primarily hostile muslim nations. Actually, on the same day, my honey found out her cousins are moving to Bahrain for three years. Supposedly it is safe there, and supposedly they will never have to work again for the rest of their lives if they do this, but I still say I’d rather work a little longer and not have the mullahs coming after me.

Overall score for this Christmas was of course not quite as sweet as the tradition to which I have adhered for the last 36 years, but a nice day nonetheless, topped off by a Christopher Walken Best of SNL DVD I picked up at the video store.