Well, I can tell we're approaching Christmas because I just set the wheels in motion for one of my favorite time-honored traditions: I got tickets to the Nutcracker.

Usually, Em and I go to the performance in Ann Arbor, which is always the same (I guess, since they've made that growing Christmas tree, they feel compelled to use it . . . ). Last year, you may recall, we went to an execrable performance of the stage play. (Perhaps the performance was OK, but the script was horrendous.)

This year, spurred on by the realization that Emma is a sophomore in high school and our time together is limited, I got tickets to the Joffrey ballet in Chicago. We'll take the train, arriving around 2:00, see the performance at 7 pm, spend the night, and catch the late train home the next day at 6 pm. I am so-oooo looking forward to this! I absolutely love Chicago just before Christmas; the animated puppets in the storefront at Marshall Field's never fail to enchant me, and I love getting roasted chestnuts from the street vendors . . . there's an outdoor ice rink (I forget where), and I saw in the paper today that they'll have a Christkindlmarkt, too - although certainly nothing to compare with the ones across the sea, I'm sure. But still, I might score some Gluhwein!

And all of this happens on December 21, which is the day when grades are due; I can turn them in online, as it turns out, so I'm hoping to have them done well before we leave. But the timing means that this will be the perfect end-of-semester celebration.

Ah, but in the meantime, there are mountains to move . . . I better get at that stack of papers I've been studiously avoiding all weekend . . .