Merry Christmas, friends and relations. By this time next week, most of us will be recovering from our tryptophan hangovers, stepping over broken toys and listening to our children proclaim loudly and repeatedly that, despite your having spent roughly the equivalent of Stephen Harper’s hair spray budget on various and sundry toys, clothes, books, baubles, bangles and beads for their amusement, they are, indeed, bored. Ahhh, youth! I don’t know about you, but I plan on enjoying every second of it.

Well, folks, it’s that time of year again! You can see it in the faces of people you meet in passing, you can detect it in that spring in your own step, as you bustle from store to store, even feel it in the crisp air, that certain indefinable something that hints to your subconscious that if you’re very still and contemplative, if you’re diligent in your efforts to remain focused on tranquility, that something a little bit like magic just might happen.