Merry Christmas

 Christmas is over...sort of.  It went... fairly well?  Yesterday was spent with my sister, brother-in-law, and favorite niece.  We just snacked, watched football (especially the Browns), exchanged presents, played a couple of games, and made fun of each other immensely.  There are loving families, but not ours, as we say.  Anyways, I arrived home about 8:30ish, caught up on J!, and then just chilled.  

Today I woke up bright and early.... not sure why, as Mass was more full than usual but not exactly crowded (thought there were plenty of people in back; I was fascinated, as I had no idea who a lot of these people were or where they came from.  Mass quite beautiful -- wonderful hymns, good music, excellent decorations -- but fast.  Fr. Eric had Mass in 42 minutes yesterday, and today... Fr. Michael did about the same.  With all the Masses they had to say (Fr. E said nine yesterday!) I think everyone was just in a hurry to get it over with; the homily was quite brief as well.  Anyways, I went to the gym and there were about 18 people there (all regulars).  It was sort of nice; only the hard core people were there and there was no meandering at the machines.

Later that afternoon I hit a friendsXmas, and that was... fun. Just good to eat, nibble, catch up, and watch some of  "Harry Potter," where I made a number of comments about the budding Harry/Ron romance.  They were surprised I had not read the books or seen the movies -- a legacy of my betrothal, I guess.  I hit a couple of kids houses after, and then home.  Rah.

The Many Myths of the Boston Tea Party | History | Smithsonian Magazine
Interesting; one doesn't remember the part about doing this to prevent the stuff from being illegally sold.

How slaveholding families reasserted themselves after the Civil War (reuters.com)
Also interesting; I went through all of the articles in the list, and... I am not sure what to do; I mean, I think the GOPers are correct in that reparations aren't exactly the way to go, but how do you account for all that has transpired since then?