So we've been lighting our Hanukkah (Channukah? Hannukah?) candles every night and buying a lot of Christmas (there, I said it!) gifts online that we're trying and failing to hide from each other (there's no blessed privacy anymore, is there?) and sending out bunches of Christmas (there, I said it again!) cards, and it's dawned on both of us that we should be sending them to so many more of you.

Let's face it, a writer can't really think of himself (or herself) as a writer unless there's somebody out there in in the vast commercial cosmos who wants to read your stuff and is moreover willing to shell out a little coin of the realm for the privilege. Or at the very least bug the local library to put those books in stock on the communal library shelves.

So thank you all. And for those many of you who will not be getting a Christmas card from us in the mail, let's just say it's the Post Office's fault (they are such an easy target, n'est ce pas?) and they somehow lost yours or perhaps the pretty Christmas "forever stamp" with the perky and regal red Cardinal (the bird one, not the Roman Catholic variety) and pristine snow drifts that never go all gray and sludge-y and the pine cones and brightly lit candles and the pretty red silk ribbon with gold trim (jeez, this is starting to sound like one of those so-sweet-you-could-choke-on-it Jackie Lawson e-cards, isn't it?) fell off because of defective glue...

How many of you remembered where that last sentence started?

But the point is this: if you didn't get yours, for whatever reason, here's what it looked like:

And this is what it said inside: