I am sitting in the living room with my children, about to decorate the Christmas tree, with Charlie Brown's Christmas on the television. Perfect contentment. Gary is bringing out the champagne, which for the first time we are allowing the children to drink.

"I think the holiday stresses Dad out," said Leslie, sitting in the corner munching on the Chocolatinis we bought at Costco this morning, while Gary struggled with the champagne bottle. Our dog Izzy seemed interested in Snoopy.

"She's so weird!!!" said Leslie, reading over my shoulder. "Is she writing this in real time or something?" Gary asked. Leslie has champagne on her breath. I am a corrupting mother.

"They're under 21, are you going to write about that!?"

Leslie has taken charge of the ornaments... and I'm sitting here next to our cat. Hmmm. What to blog?

Oh, wait...

2008 has been My Favorite Year. I feel energetic and healthy and challenged... I love my job, even as newspapers -- ours included -- struggle for survival. I covered the presidential campaign for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, traveling to Florida, Texas, Denver, Virginia, New Hampshire... in March and April, Pennsylvania's primary, which meant that suddenly meant a big market for political reporters from Pittsburgh... I was interviewed by the BBC, NPR, Greta Van Susteren (for about 10 seconds and she didn't seem to care about my answers), and, most nerve-wrackingly, on Jim Lehrer's NewsHour. See the link, here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec08/battleanalysis_10-08.html.

That's it for now.