I briefly noted a green bean and a leaf of lettuce yesterday, but aside from a small helping of turkey (which we eat so often that it no longer seems a treat) every other item I injested yesterday contained cream cheese, sour cream or both. As my blood schlepps through my arteries today, it probably has the consistency of toothpaste.

As we have for as long as I can remember, we kicked off the annual season of Chex mix with a late-afternoon repast at the home of the mother-in-law, formerly the head hairnet at a school cafeteria, a woman accustomed to preparing side dishes in vats and cauldrons rather than pots and pans. Before the meal, the three boys and I tossed a football around the backyard; after the meal, when the time came to waddle away from the table (Pumpkin pie or cherry cream cheese cake? A little of both perhaps?) and stake a claim on a sofa, Taylor and Owen tried to promote a game of moonlight football but could not enlist any of the adult males of the tribe. Besides, there were vats and cauldrons to scrub.

After we cleared the debris from the table and restored the kitchen to a nearly pristine state, the adults drew names for Christmas gift assignments. We hold this lottery to reduce the amount of buying we must do for each other. We also set a dollar limit of fifty bucks per person. The kids, of course, are exempt from the lottery; in fact, they benefit from it. The in-laws, in my view, go way overboard in their spending for Christmas, but if they must go overboard, better on the kids than on each other, I say.

This lottery can make the gift giving seem like a business transaction, an obligation, a mere cash exchange. This becomes apparent when that new red and green Christmas sweater-and-tie combo from the Ward Cleaver collection is accessorized with a new set of toenail clippers so that the giver can hit the fifty dollar mark without going over the limit. The process does, however, save each each of us a sizable lump of cash. This year I drew Harriet's name (the kids' great-grandmother). I have no idea what to buy for her, but I'm sure that in time I'll be told what to buy. And if I postpone long enough, perhaps her granddaughter will make the purchase for me, saving me a trip to the department store. I know this is shabby behavior, but I'd rather rub a jalape�o on an open wound than go shopping during Christmas.

Before we passed back through the woods and over the meadow to our own house that night, I took a picture of a picture. (Okay, there is no meadow and there are no woods, but there are streets wonderfully empty of traffic since the college students departed for Thanksgiving.)The photo of Owen and Taylor is a detail from a wedding picture that hangs in the grandmother's house. Their uncle's wedding took place in December 1995. Taylor would have been four and Owen eight in that shot. I think Taylor might be wearing my sweater and tie.

The weekend has been a good one so far. We have cleared the house inside and out for the arrival of all the Christmas crap that now moulders in the attic, I've observed Owen relent a time or two in his torture of Taylor, and Josh has moved back from the dorm for the weekend. His return to the household has crowded the computer schedule a bit. If he decides to live at home this summer, we'll have to consider switching from the dial-up connection to a cable connection with a hub for multiple users.

For the last three evenings we've had roving bands of college kids in the house, Josh's friends from high school, some of whom attend KSU, and others who went away to school but who have returned for the holiday with tales of faraway places. And they seem to be headed toward my stash of cream cheese, so I must end this here.

Reading: Dava Sobel's Longitude is nearby, but Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose is open. I am, however, probably still too distractible to read it, a state of mind also evident in this entry.

Watching:
This afternoon, Colorado vs. Nebraska (32-34) followed by A&M vs. Texas (17-43).