Lessons for the holidays

1. It does not matter whether or not spiders are good luck. When company is coming over, everything must be vacuumed.

2. If you go skiing, you are not allowed to put your wet snowy boots next to the fireplace to dry out until after people leave, so they do not think we live like slobs. (Albeit slobs with warm, dry feet.)

3. Who would be so silly as to gather the pine boughs with the long needles when only the obviously short ones make appropriate decorations?

4. Thou must not encourage the cat to play with ornaments.

5. Only festive cut-out cookies this time of year. Dinosaurs are unacceptable (not just because the Stegosaurus's tail always breaks off when you try to frost it.) No, you cannot just squint and say the Diplodocus looks like a reindeer with really short legs and a long neck and tail. Wreaths and trees and stars only. (Maybe the occasional airplane, for Dad, so long as it's red and green.)

6. Never ever admit to your mother that you're happy to be home, that you too find a sort of joy in fussing over the little absurdities that make the season special. Your job is to rearrange the "N-O-E-L" blocks and steal camels from the Nativity scene.