Just the kind of thing I like.

An interesting Christmas, this year -- my once-weekly job evolved into a bit more than intended and on top of extra classes to teach, as Thursday is my usual timeslot in the yarn shop, I had the unpleasant novelty of working Christmas Eve.

Everything turned out well, though, and we had a very merry Christmas day. My daughters cobbled together their money and bought me an impressively large gift card for Kobo, so I did some Boxing Day shopping and am now neck-deep in "Major Pettigrew's Last Stand", which I'm finding both enormously touching and killingly funny.

The Major found much to admire in America but also felt that the nation was still in its infancy, its birth predating Queen Victoria's reign by a mere sixty years or so. Generous to a fault -- he still remembered the tins of chocolate powder and waxy crayons handed out in his school even several years after the war -- America wielded her huge power in the world with a brash confidence that reminded him of a toddler who has got hold of a hammer.

It's full of wry, quotable sentences filched from the musings of its title character, whom I very much wish I could meet in real life, but am keenly aware that I wouldn't measure up to his notions of good manners.

Today I have the rare pleasure of being home alone. My husband has taken the kids to Nanaimo to shop, giving me a good few hours of lounging on the sofa with a chocolate in one hand and my e-reader in the other. I even have my glasses off, a technique I've developed in order to stay relaxed in a living room slightly too messy for true comfort.

My warmest, albeit late, wishes to you for a Merry Christmas. Don't forget -- we're only on the third day of twelve, so keep the Yuletide spirit going with a well-placed glass of champagne, some seasonal music, and pajamas at all hours.

XO