A Very Merry Christmas, Vacation and New Year 2011 to You All

This is my last scheduled post of 2010.  Blogging will resume at the usual five-a-week (yeah, that’s minimum) pace on January 3, 2011.  Stopping by between now and then might earn you a surprise or two if something happens that I can’t keep quiet about, but generally speaking, I’ll see you next year.

Since this post will stay visible for a while, I thought I’d leave you with a mixed bag of greetings, wishes and a few lessons learned from 2010.

The Greetings

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Bon-Whatever-You-Celebrate to you all.  May you, your relatives and your friends have a joyous, blessed and happy Christmas and concluding week to 2010.

“God Bless us, every one.”

The Wishes

I wish each and every one of you gets the pony (s)he wished for in 2011, and that (s)he recognizes it for the joyous gift it is, even if it comes with a stable full of poop and a pitchfork two sizes too small.  There are lessons to be learned from everything.  May you not just learn yours, but learn to enjoy and appreciate them too.

The Lessons Learned in 2010

1.  The appropriate size mattress for a relatively small person and a four-pound cat is a California King.  (Queen sized mattresses will fit the cat alone.)

2.  Three year-olds love to kiss people.  This goes double if the toddler in question has a runny nose or just regurgitated half a chocolate bar.

3.  It takes 30 days to write a 100,000 word manuscript, and 7 months (give or take) to figure out which 20,000 words didn’t belong there and which 10,000 were left out.

4.  There may be better ways to spend a Saturday morning than real Chinese dim sum with friends, but I’m not sure what they are.  Corollary: a morning eating dim sum with friends results in an afternoon spent napping on the couch.  Be prepared.

5.  Life is too short to go without new books or lemon cupcakes.  Consume both regularly.

Have a fantastic time with the rest of 2010, and I’ll see you all in ’11!