I love those parties when, an hour after the guests have ...

I love those parties when, an hour after the guests have HELPED ME WASH UP before departure, the house looks as if nothing whatsoever has happened there. A beautiful Christmas Day with my family, concluded by quietly watching TV with the cat on my lap.

This morning I celebrated the true beginning of my Rest Period (prepping for Christmas luncheon, above, made the preceding week not count) by clearing mass quantities of accumulated shit out of my study - "rest" in my case meaning, "get as much done on the rough draft of the next vampire book as you possibly can before teaching starts again." The cats are freaked and grieved, since a) cats hate change and b) some of those junk-piles had become favored napping-places. I have regretfully come to the conclusion that the Really Big CHair will have to be cut up with a chainsaw and carried out of the room in pieces (as my friend Hazel had to do with George's desk). Unearthed piles of old photographs, and a staggering quantity of very old store credit cards which will have to be chopped up into little pieces in spite of the fact that most of the places they're for don't exist anymore - does ANYBODY have a Spiegel's card at this late date?