Just want to take a moment to convey my best Christmas wishes to everybody who may have occasion to read this. Down here at the end of the road, we never have a white Christmas (it’s 79° outside my window as I write this), but the spirit is the same. My XM radio is tuned to the Christmas music channel, and I don’t feel any less Christmasy than I did growing up in the frozen north. My girlfriend and I and another couple are going to a friend’s house for dinner and good wine, then we’re coming back home and open presents, followed by watching Christmas In Connecticut on DVR.

It doesn’t get better than that.