Hugs, Janet. What a stew!
We have been looking at an on-again off-again trip for this whole month with work repeatedly threatening to have our noses to our computer screens right until next week in some more dire predictions. And one of our colleagues, in our tiny team of six, just probably lost his dad unexpectedly yesterday (may be on life support but not clear, no hope either way, cancer) and had to fly out. So yeah, sometimes it is just ridiculous... Worse when you are looking forward to peace and joy and merriment.
On the flip side, we will be home on Christmas day and we managed to put up a tiny fake and very silly tree, and if nothing else, the tot has 12 books waiting for him for the 12 days of Xmas, and we can do at least a 2-night trip by the end of the year, which is a rare blessing as one of our preferred hotels was able to switch us to a 30-31 December booking, which is a rare enough gift this year.
And now, with Peri's little nugget of wisdom, I am very kicked to tell little Aman, the reindeer are girls! Because his 12 books were chosen especially with female protagonists in mind, since I noticed recently that all his books have mostly default male protagonists... Be it a bird, a plane or an imaginary friend, they were all 'he'. Ties in beautifully to this year's Solstice theme for us!