Merry Merry

The smile, or smirk, may have faded from your face since reading my annual Christmas letter, so it's time to give you more fodder and hit the SLA. I did get a little input on my holiday missive from The Wig. I can almost envision him now, in a pensive mood, asking himself, "Where the hell are the blood oranges?"

Sonny Boy One arrived from DC this week. We arm wrestled in a Festivus feats of strength event yesterday. I lost. The girl got back from a Fort Bragg tournament around the same time. They lost the final game after stomping the competition in the first two. Nonetheless, I expect perfection. She's getting a lump of coal.

I spent most of this past week in Palm Desert with the in-laws. Does that sound appealing? You've seen the movies of people stuck in the desert, desperate for water, seeing mirages, swimming in the sand. Yeah, add in-laws to that. That was my holiday vacation.

We actually had a very good time and are grateful to my mother-in-law for hooking us up at her Marriott timeshare. My wife did a lot of shopping and I did a lot of lying around. I had a chance to make my first foray into SteinMart. I've seen the commercials but have never been to one. I renamed it ShitMart.

The drives to and from were pretty uneventful. I did see a tractor trailer with a large sign, "Trucking for Jesus". Try as I might, I can't come up with a good line for that one so I'm just reporting the event. We caught a bit of rain on the way down but were lucky to avoid the heavy rainfall before returning. It rained quite a bit during our stay but the sun greeted us as we were packing the car to leave. Timing is everything.

Merry Christmas to all