Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
whispering, “It will be happier.” —Alfred Lord Tennyson

As newspaper headlines go, the above quote is an unusually poetic outlier, but it’s what first greets you on the front page of today’s paper. Holidays are typically slow news days. Most of the engines of news have closed shop for the day. Today being an exclusively American holiday tends to temper this tendency, what with the rest of the world carrying on without us, but this holiday being a particularly introspective one will mute whatever news has occurred overseas. We have ourselves and whoever we’ve managed to gather to us and to hell with the rest of the world, but that kind of attitude, while it may seem appropriate for this particular year, is not in keeping with the spirit of the day.

File this paragraph under do as I say and not as I do. An informal survey—me looking out my front window—has deduced that most of our neighbors across the street have chosen not to heed the advice of health officials. None of their cars are around this weekend, indicating that they have gone to see grandma or some such. They have new babies to share. I wish them well and hope that their Zoom-less Thanksgiving does not result in an ICU-mas for any of them. I feel that by outing them like this that I should have really done it on Next-Door. Isn’t that where nosey neighbors go to tattle on one another?

Anne and I will be playing it safe this year. Enjoying our own little holiday home alone together. We’ll be burning up the long distance wires as we reach out to touch all of our certain some ones. As bad as this year has been, we still have plenty to be thankful for. All of our family members, save one, are hale and hearty. That is the most important thing. And all of the rosy vaccine news of late, lends credence to Tennyson’s whispered promise. There may be dark days yet to come, but we’ll muddle through and look for more happiness in the new year.