We’re home again after about a week traveling northbound to my parents' house for Christmas. All in all, I’m exhausted. But it was a great trip, full of some wonderful memories: my son’s first time skiing (about which I can just say joy and glee and miles-wide grins) which I will remember for the rest of my life; meeting my new nephew for the first time; seeing many family and school friends for the first time in years; the way my son was perfectly happy — more than happy, content and Merry — with the very first present he found for himself under the tree, no expectations of more but then there’s more OMG (because of course there was, thanks, grandma and grandpa); feeding my nephew and rocking him to sleep; my wife being ill for most of the trip, sitting together quietly after the house had gone to sleep.

Recognizing in my son that these memories are forming for him, too, that he will remember pieces of the last week as he goes on through his own life, an evolving story that will one day be all his own.

Bring it on, 2014.