Merry Christmas, everyone! The Superfast Three are snuggled up in our apartment with my parents and my younger brother watching Fargo and waiting to get hungry for round 2 of the Irish ham we enjoyed last night.

I got a few books for Christmas this year, fewer than usual because I asked for clothes to accommodate my postpartum body. So the stack was small, but noteworthy:

From my dad: An Exaltation of Larks by James Lipton. It’s a compendium of the specific term to refer to more than two of just about anything. Should be fun to discover and a great source of inspiration for my writing.

My brother got me the first two books in Joe Abercrombie’s acclaimed new series: The Blade Itself and Before They Are Hanged, as well as One Skein, a gorgeous knitting book by Leigh Radford.

Lastly, some family friends got us the latest edition of the Dr. Spock baby book. It looks like a good resource, with complementary advice to my beloved Sears Baby Book. Plus, it’s featured prominently in a movie that Superfast Husband and I both love: Raising Arizona. Discovering our shared affection for HI McDonough was definitely a bonding moment for us.

We are active members of our church, but since we don’t own our building (we rent from the 7th Day Adventists), we sadly can’t go to a Christmas service with our community. We’ve tried other churches in New York City the few years that we’ve been here, but have been disappointed. So we don’t do church on Christmas, which is a little weird. Our church does a wonderful Advent and has a Christmas service on the Sunday before Christmas, but we missed all of those because of not wanting to bring the new baby out during cold and flu season. It’s been an oddly un-religious Christmas, but Jesus knows that we’re very thankful.

Hope all of you who celebrate Christmas have had a wonderful day, and I want to wish all my readers many blessings this holiday season. Thanks for making Reading is my Superpower such a fun pastime!