friday night we fetched Beth's niece from the airport. she's spending Christmas with us. her family stopped doing Christmas because the tensions of the season came to dominate too much. it was her idea to quit it, as a young girl. but she's excited to come back to it. our tree's been up a while. the youngest daughter of Israeli friends helped us trim it. the family's been in the US for 5 years, and before that Singapore. I don't know if the girl, 9 years old, was even born in Israel. Christmas is a fascination for her, unsurprisingly. obviously the matter of Christmas is a tough one to negotiate but honest, we're not inculcating. Dana was bubbly excited when she came over to trim the tree. she said unwrapping the ornaments was like opening birthday presents. so the house is in festive mode. Beth's niece was due at midnight, requiring a visit to Logan in its rare comparative quietness. while we waited, an alarm sounded and the escalator from where we expected Lexie to appear stopped. then an airport worker pulled the security fence closed. Beth goes to the worker and asks, where's my niece? and Lexie comes along from another way. so there, just as magical as that. and not enough sleep. and then our Christmas party. a feature of which was drumming. my drums were not on display but a request came from the younger children. so I hauled out my congos, bongos, domubek and other hand drums. now, all the boys are in Erin's room playing Magic cards and vid games but just about everyone else ends up drumming. I mean, go figure. and it went on, gosh 45 minutes or more. even with some rave-like dancing and ululations. it's so weirdly unselfconscious. cripes are we boho or what? I've always observed that drums are tempting: when people see them, they want to make a little noise. and not enough sleep, once again. this is my poetic milieu. it works for me