The holiday party for the local weekly paper here was lots of fun. It’s a potluck, with the founders of the paper (both women) providing the meat and rolls and everyone else brings appetizers, sides, and desserts. There’s more food than at Thanksgiving, and all of it was fabulous. The company was even better. I think for me, since I work from home and am alone (or with kids) quite a bit, it’s really wonderful to have this to look forward to during holiday time.

Each year, the editor does some kind of thematic gag gift for each employee, from the retirees who stuff inserts in each outgoing issue to the man who drives the delivery truck to stringers and columnists to office staff. This year’s theme was poker, and my “award” was a “full house,” with a quip about all the background noise every time she calls me at home. The editor is a really funny and creative person so lots of the awards were really on-point and also had the crowd laughing. I thought it was pretty amazing that 18 years ago, these two women had a dream and went for it. The result is a quality newspaper staffed with loyal, generous, and hard-working people that has remained true to its mission of covering things important to residents of this town.

Khevin, who has had a horrible case of post-ear-infection vertigo all week, started feeling better minutes before we had to leave, and I think he had a good time. Honestly, I’ve never, ever seen him as miserable as he was this week. The boy never takes sick days, and he took two for this. Besides, he couldn’t drive, but then Friday he asked me to drive him in to work so he could catch up on the mountain of work he had.

When we returned home, we discovered that my mom had enlisted the boys to help her clean their art room, which had become an avalanche of paper and books, with no clear space on their table or floor. I had gotten to the point where I couldn’t bear to think about tackling cleaning it. What a nice treat!