(This is my first year doing the Seekrit Santa thing. Must post box of goodies asap.)

Ditto! Except I'm getting DH to post mine when he gets back to the States. Because I'm cheappractical like that.

Well done stoner Santa Lee! Also, Santas and Santees, pictures are a nice bonus!

eta: This is the first year that I haven't participated, which is sad making. Reality is I just don't have the time to give the process enough thought and didn't need the stress. This is still one of my favorite threads. I love reading the year end summaries and watch the squeee over the prezzies.

Laura, me too and for the same reasons. I feel bad but hopefully can enjoy everyone else's fun presents.

This is so small, but my current Christmas joy is our tree. I was expeecting to pay a lot of money because the trees have to be shipped here from the US. When they started seeling them in late November, I found out that even the big 7ft. ones were only $45. Then, when we went to buy ours on Saturday, they were 50% of so we paid only $22.50.

This tree is huge - it's almost as wide as it is tall. The house smells so good. And, since last year Ellie was in the hospital from Dec.8-18th, this year is already a huge improvement over last year.

I suppose I would like to say "Fuck you and good riddance" to 2007, but I can't really blame the year. Most of my angst and misery has been my fault.

I chose to move to a state with the second-highest unemployment rate in the country. I was the bone-head who didn't pay his tickets in California and, as a result, will have a real hard time getting a license in Michigan (who the hell knew there was a national DMV database? Probably everyone except me.)

My back is the result of something I did to myself a decade ago and is coming back as it does at least once every year.

All in all...I'm not a fan of 2007, but, again, not exactly the year's fault. I'll just have to leave 2007 thankful that I still have my wife and my daughter and happy to get out alive.

i'm not sure i've ever particpated in Secret Santa here, but i hope one day i can. a year where my pay doesn't get docked for taking more than my allotted paid sick/vacation days. i'm hoping that's next year.

I love reading what everyone else has gotten though.

Pictures from Suzi's Secret Santa Day!: [link]

Suzi with Fun Stuff: [link]

Slounging!: [link]

Toes: [link]

2007 was pretty much all about Write A Book. With heaping doses of New Baby, and a soupcon of Emmett Kicks Ass At Baseball.

Matilda proved to be the most delightful baby in the history of ever. So while the sleep dep and poop checks are undesirable, there were many compensatory moments.

Emmett pretty much went out and conquered baseball this year, culminating in hitting a grand freakin' slam to help his all-star team win the district championship.

And I wrote a book. It was my third book but the first I wrote entirely myself, which turns out to be a completely different experience than co-editing a book with some written contributions.

It was terrifying and extremely difficult and incredibly satisfying and felt like the biggest mountain I had climbed. I completely understood how graduate students can get stuck in a perpetual place of all-done except for the dissertation. I did not feel like I had exhausted the subject at all, and the only reason I finished was because they pay you when you turn in your manuscript.

Hence, all graduate students should get a hefty chunk of change to finish their dissertations.

I think JZ's year was very different than mine. More stressful in some ways, learning how to be a parent. We definitely scraped by financially so I'd have time to write. But it was time I needed to have. I have a lot more insight into what it takes to finish a book than I did before. That it's not (as Richard Russo put it) "something you can yank out of your forebrain." I think I understand how novelists take wrong turns at the end now. How they commit those what-the-fuck errors so obvious to the reader. How mysterious the whole process can be when you're in it. How difficult to trust that it will come to you.

Also felt like I understood all those short careers. Those second novels never written or flummoxed for years. It's so fucking hard. And my book was relatively short. But still, it was a long trek.

Like Hec's, my 2007 was pretty single-minded. For me, it was Teddy's kidney failure.

We learned of it during the second half of March. Regular visits to the vet (eventually, daily visits) because Teddy wouldn't let us give him his sub-Q fluids. Three rounds of IV fluids. Being told at least twice that he diidn't have long to live. Finding out on the third round of IV fluids that, contrary to what we were told during the second round, he wasn't too old for a transplant after all.

Spending much of late October and the first half of November driving to, and staying in, Philadelphia. (Though I did enjoy staying on the U of Penn campus.) Giving Teddy his immune suppressant at 6:30 every morning.

But we have Teddy back. He's up to 7.25 pounds and as feisty as ever. And that makes it worth it.

As a side note, this is also the year that Hubs started to travel regularly for work. Which has its own pluses and minuses.

All in all, I'd take 2007 over 2006 anytime. My dad has had zero stays in the hospital since New Year's, which is a vast improvement over last year's inpatient-palooza.

I'm not entirely thrilled with the circumstances surrounding my move, but at least I got a new apartment that really suits me. Being back in Jonesboro will let me crawl back out from under the debt that the 3 hour/day commute put me in over the last few years, and I can sleep later and still get to (and off!) work an hour earlier. The big bonus is being much closer to and more available for my folks on a day-to-day basis.

Hence, all graduate students should get a hefty chunk of change to finish their dissertations.

I heartily support this idea.

My 2007 has been not great. Medical issues kind of clouding everything else these past few months. Hoping that 2008 will bring a doctor who can actually figure out what's wrong and what to do about it.