[Article] Building another secret cabinet

Our family Christmas Eve tradition, which we absolutely stole from Icelandic traditions (cultural appropriation? I’m not sure…) via some newspaper article we saw years ago, is a book exchange. verybody gives each other person a book,then we sit around and read until people retire to bed (first the kids, then – eventually – the adults). […]

At first I thought “Christmas post” had something to do with letters and parcels, but then I found one in the wild.

Today I put 550 Christmas cards into envelopes, sealed them, put address labels on them, and stamped them. Because these were the "lick and stick" kind of envelopes rather than a self-sealing variety, I've been unable to taste anything except glue ever since.

You know you've stayed up too late when... the milkman arrives and hands you your milk.

This week, I allowed myself to come perilously close to my burnout point (you would never guess I was on sabbatical, would you?), but I'm proud to say I noticed before I hit a point of catastrophe. Now I just need to course-correct and stop picking up 'new' things for a few days. I can do that, right?