And a "real last post before the holidays":

As always: have a wonderful holiday, whichever one you choose to celebrate. And even if you celebrate none, enjoy your federally-sanctioned day off next Monday.

I hope all the memories you have this season are happy. And I hope that your memories of the people who have left this plane (which tend to crop up during the holidays) are more happy and consoling than sad.

And I wish everyone who is traveling safe travels. And I wish everyone who is staying in houses with small children that the new-favorite-toy they receive as a gift is a quiet one. And I wish a cessation of any hostilities in families where they have been a feature in the past.

And if you plan on doing crafting of any kind this season, good crafting.

And I hope you get some neat presents.

And I'll be back in January. Have a wonderful Chanukah, Solstice, Christmas, New Year's, and/or Epiphany.

It's been unnaturally warm (even for here) and now it's raining, so I've kind of lost the Christmas mojo I had worked up. I'm hoping it will be cooler when I get up to my folks' house TOMORROW (that still makes me happy to think about even if it feels like April outside here).

Another weird little fact about me: I once heard that 7% of adults travel with a stuffed toy. Okay, I'm comin' out here: I'm in that 7%. (I don't ALWAYS do it, and I probably wouldn't if I were flying, because with my luck I'd get the hypersuspicious TSA agent who'd rip its head off or something to be sure I wasn't carrying contraband). But I do like traveling with a small critter - even if I never take it out of the bag, it's a comfort to know it's in there, and that if I really had to, I could unzip my carryon under the pretext of looking for a book or the aspirins or something, and reach down in and feel it there.

And for me, it doesn't even have to be the same one every time - not the same old teddy bear I'd had since I was 2 or something. So this year, I actually have Gloria the Triceratops tucked in there. Just to remind me of my own home, you know, and to remind me that even if things get crazy on the road, eventually I will be somewhere settled....that's the best explanation that I can give as to WHY, I suspect many of the other adult-secret-toy-carriers feel the same way. (I also have my Eeyore beanbag - which I do usually take when I take one - in there to keep her company.)