another christmas has come and gone, almost. we survived this year as we do others. we had a tree, had lots of excitement, had a lot of good food. we lit the way, with paper sacks, sand and candles. we had kids awake at about seven dying to open stuff. now that they are teenagers they want a lot of clothes, and i'm ok with that, because at least they wear them, it's not like you're throwing money away on meaningless garbage. we gave them what they asked for. it worked, by and large.

the quakers have this idea that you shouldn't make a big deal about christmas. i agree, but find it almost impossible when you live in the world, in the culture, and your kids have friends and go to school. i never lie about santa, and try not to lie about anything else, but it doesn't matter, they come home all convinced that santa is going to drop big piles of loot on them just by virtue of their being a kid. so you get sucked into this materialistic vortex no matter what, and either your kids go back saying they got coal, or nothing, or were disappointed, or they are able to trade notes with their friends and say something like, 'i got a lot of what i asked for.' we choose the latter. we are of this world, and we play this game as bad as any of them.

it's a nice time of year - cold, not too snowy, clear, pretty. i took my wife for a walk out by the fence at the reservation; it's only a couple miles from our house. she was surprised how pretty it was, and that i could walk so far (she rides a horse, but it's not as much exercise, apparently, as a three-or-four-mile walk). the canyon was beautiful in its vast expanse, with turkeys down in the riverbed, evidence of deer and elk everywhere, and narrow paths beaten down by some kind of animal, probably cows. it was a break from home, where she was cooking up a storm, and where we were up early in spite of being up late filling stockings, etc. the house is small, crowded, excited, and full of smells - the canyon wide, cold, clear, beautiful. a good break, as hunters have to take thursdays and fridays off, and were nowhere in sight.

in general i'm deep in the 1850's, researching my first cousin three times removed, a geologist worth writing a biography of. i've run out of ordinary stories, so now i'm telling true stuff. this guy walked from ames to madison - he noticed the ground beneath him, and had a good sense of what he was looking at - and had an interesting life in general. research into it gets me to read up on denmark, iowa, his hometown, first college town in the new territory, before iowa was even a state. back then the river valleys - denmark is near burlington, fort madison and keokuk - were the heart of life and culture. even so, their homes, and the denmark academy, stood up on the windblown plains as they huddled through the winter.

the valley has settled in an uneasy peace - it's quiet around here anyway, when the hunters are off. the fire chief offered the vaccine to anyone in the fire department, but i passed it up because i'm not answering calls. some people took it, though, and everyone's waiting to see if they end up ok. so much is said out there, about it being dangerous and all, you'd think taking it would make you a democrat or something. i'm already a democrat. all i have to do is survive until it's my turn. and that's hard enough, what with the skating rink open (masks required) and all the kids wanting to go down there, and hang out in such a matter as to which they are accustomed.