Happy Happy

Like many of you, I've been busy as a bee preparing for Christmas and all the gift-buying, travel-planning and friend-seeing that accompanies this frantic month.  So this page has not been getting a whole lot of love from me lately.  Instead, I've been hanging out with my nonegenarian grandmas and the rest of my family and simply enjoying being home in Chicago for a few days.

So this is just a quick stop in to wish you a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays.  May the New Year be filled with peace, love and good health.  And more happiness doesn't hurt, either.  Whether you're checking in from Russia, Korea, Canada or just here in the good ol' USA, I hope you're spending the week with family and friends, pigging out on Christmas cookies and sitting down to a good dinner tonight, regardless of how you are celebrating.

I'll leave you with a few photos of my hometown lit up for the season.  While we usually see snow around this time of year, the rain still lends its own atmospheric stamp on these images.  And all the decorations ensure that it still feels like Christmas, even if the thermometer is all confused.

Now go out and be merry :)