It amuses me to consider apologizing for any of this.

First, I've seen it so many times. Somebody starts a blog, maybe carries it on for a long while, maybe not so long, then tapers off. Posts dwindle and dry up, and output becomes spontaneous, for those special moments only. And usually these are the worst times to write/share instinctively, but no matter. It's how often the author will apologize:

I'm sorry I haven't been updating here as often as...

Amused, as I said. No one cares, not after two posts per year for the past five years. I mean, we care. We read. But we're not wondering. We know. Haha. Polite, but amusing. And not for me.

So no sorrys. I have no idea who drops by this place, although that would be fun to know. I have no idea if there are, in fact, readers who come here, seeking out truth and wisdom and leaving disappointed. I kind of doubt it, but hey. Stranger things.

And all of it feels moot with Facebook, etc. It shouldn't be, but Facebook can become a de facto blog for anyone in the mood, easy. No need for this.

Ah, well. I'll just note for my mythical readers that it's been a little odd here. Not in the household, not particularly. Just inside my brain.

...

But we'll save that, or ignore it. I personally did an end-run around it, finding myself posting on Twitter and Instagram and even Facebook with more regularity, just whatever dumb notions light up my board, most of them unserious because I'm not a particularly serious guy. I have interests and concerns and all. I tend not to engage all that much. Again, it's an odd time.

Anyway. I need to add blogging back to my daily to-do. I may start small. I may be trivial. I may, in fact, always be that way, always have been, always will be. It may be what I do.

...

This will have to be more of a 2018 project, since I'm heading for Texas in a few days, for a few days. I need to swim in boyhood for a bit, recharge the grandpa batteries, and then hey, I'm all yours.

So let's just do trivia. To start off easy.

We became aware mid-week that our upcoming Christmas might have an extra package arriving. We weren't even thinking about snow, no signs on the radar horizon, and boom. Potential turned into legitimate possibility, which turned into the real damn thing. Really.

The snow started Sunday afternoon, creeping north from Oregon, spreading the Christmas spirit about as well as it can be spread. I was baking like an insane person (more later) and only keeping a quarter-eye on the Seahawks game (more later), with the rest of my eyes out the window or on the weather widget. By the time we headed out for the 30-mile drive to church, around 5:45pm, we had about half an inch on the ground and some slippery surface roads to negotiate, although the freeway was fine. There was more snow at church, and ever-reliable Don was out front, clearing a path.

It snowed throughout the service, and afterward as we headed over to friends' to mellow out a bit before the easy drive back home. We got the perfect White Christmas, a few inches on a day off, never extreme cold, warming up enough today to make it all go far, far away. Perfect.

The Seahawks, not so much. This season has been a peculiar one, as I've drifted back and forth between passion and disinterest, although that's more about the sport and my feeling that all the emotional yanking is pretty pointless. The team has been marginal all year, poised for a big season only if everything worked perfectly and nobody got hurt, and of course lots of big players got hurt. And the weak spots rose to the top, and so on. There's still a playoff chance, which I'll keep an eye on, and no regrets, not with a successful home team for years and years. And it's almost over.

As is the baking mania. It became my Christmas, baking did. I went all in on cookies, not really of the Christmas variety (which usually are tasteless, to me, and overdone; all glamour and no flavor). I firmed up my chocolate chip variety (smaller, a tad less chocolate) and made 100 of those, along with my favorite peanut butter ones (I dunno; just love them. I buy a jar of peanuts and use the whole thing, most of it to make the butter and the rest for texture, and myohmy). I tried my hand at gingerbread and then had a big jar of molasses for that, so I made some cocoa-dusted snickerdoodles that may become my favorite. Then I revamped that gingerbread (how could I have gone this long without working with gingerbread?) into little loaves, or bars, covered with a glaze and tasting pretty much like homemade cinnamon rolls without the rolling.

I took a bunch to church and handed them out like tracts, shoving little bags of sugar into the hands of unsuspecting, innocent people who probably never had cavities before, I'm unclear. I don't feel great about it but I had to.

And our Christmas was just fine, as was our quiet dinner together and our day. Now we recover a bit and pack for Texas, and I'll try to write here more, not for you but just because. You can still read it, though. I'll also probably bake more cookies for the trip; this all feels so inevitable.

Because this. Which is what Christmas is all about.