Christmas Eve in the suburbs with Sarah's family.

There were lots of congratulations and compliments on the engagement and ring, even though I think everyone already knew it was coming. In fact, I think her whole family knew by the end of the day that I asked for her grandfather's permission. That's the way families are.

During the White Elephant/Yankee Swap/Dirty Santa gift exchange last year I thought it would be amusing to bring Sham-Wow as my contribution to the swap. It wasn't as big a hit as I'd hoped, and frankly no one had heard of it before. You always feel bad for the person saying, "Hey... don't forget you can steal this things. This... uh... this Sham thing. Still up for stealing."

This year I just brought a bottle of scotch, and it was stolen three times (the game limit). So, I'm learning.