I’m writing this at the dining room table in my pajamas on Friday morning, after a breakfast of pumpkin pie and coffee. Breakfast of Champions!

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• Christmas was great! A little understated this year, because we made our major Christmas purchase earlier in the month—more on that when it happens—but fun and full of cheer. Finn got her first MP3 player: not an iPod, to her dismay, but something just as good (and cheaper) if/when she loses it, preloaded with music she requested.
• We hosted Jen’s family here for Christmas dinner that afternoon, and it was great to see everyone under the same roof. I was able to navigate the new head unit to provide Christmas music into the living room, and we had a blazing fire going all night. Hazel was super-chill with the little kids, to our relief. We all ate way too much good food and topped it off with excellent dessert. I think we were all in bed by 10PM.
• My cold has still not lifted. I’ve been swilling cough medicine by the gallon since last week, and because my immune system is still compromised it’s taking much longer than normal to fight this thing off. I don’t have a fever, and I’ve been able to get up and move around OK the whole time, but I’m tired of coughing and blowing my nose. I may be visiting the urgent care clinic today.
• Thursday was a relaxed, sit on the couch and fart around kind of day. We did eventually get up and join the Geblers across the street at the playground, and then walked up to a neighborhood cafe for some lunch. Hazel was happy to get a good walk in, and it felt great to be out in the warm weather. We left at about 3:30 because we had Rise of Skywalker matinee tickets, so we loaded our pockets with Christmas candy and settled into our seats. The verdict: I agree with a lot of the criticism I’ve read since we saw it—there’s way too much retconning away from Last Jedi in this script, some of the characters introduced in that movie got completely sidelined, and it introduces—and then forgets—a gigantic number of plot holes and questions. The first 20 minutes felt like a speed run through a department store, and the big set pieces could have used another few minutes to breathe and let us feel the stakes. I feel like Abrams did a better job on the first movie; this was good but pales in comparison to the best movies in the series.