Friday. Last day of the week Friday and Christmas Eve too, doodle-dee-do, how's that for a nice combination? Overly enthusiastic, I'd guess, but I've just gotten back from Starbucks with a large cup of coffee and the Times after a good ten hours sleep, what's not to like? Hup! Hup! Why so much sleep I don't know, maybe it's the colder weather, but sleeping I am and feeling marginally better as the days roll on. (Hup! Hup!)

But enough. Still overcast, but no rain, the weather again cool for an Oaklander, but Christmassy and stuff.

Later. The morning gone, the rain has come, a brief nap to clear the head, the day ahead. My sister is out shopping for last minute needs for dinner, the tree is trimmed, the coffee drunk and all of us have scoured the Internet for whatever it is we're after. My brother-in-law has spent maybe an hour talking with his family (in French, of course), so I assume familial holiday business is completed.

No pictures, for all the camera equipment I have in tow, but we'll make up for that later. Missing the pictures that were to be taken at the family party will be a loss - is a loss - but such is life. It bends and twists on its own course and in its own time, photography does. Or something equally squirrelly and artsy-fartsy. It's Christmas Eve, many things may be legally overstated.

Later still. Idly looking through this laptop to see what might remain from earlier trips, I came across one or two pictures taken on the way up the coast in 2007. It is an amazing coast, winter or summer, all but the driving anyway. Tweak the clouds a bit, otherwise not much in the way of adjustments required.

Things are cooking in the kitchen as I write, people coming by to pick up Christmas presents sent here to my sister's house by younger neighbors wanting to hide them from their mothers and fathers until the day arrived. Interesting to see that being done. Some of the old magic still left in the season, hiding presents not just from the kids. At our age the kids have kids, of course. Maybe my analogy, whatever it was, is stumbling here. Perhaps things changed when I wasn't paying the proper attention.