The house is empty again. At least it seems empty with only the four of us (six if you add the dogs).

The last two weeks we hosted “A Very Special Kandra Family Christmas”. The four of us, my parents, sister and hubby, other sister and hubby and their two boys, brother and his daughter (sister-in-law couldn’t get anyone to watch over their home which is essentially a mini-farm with sheep and chickens and ducks) made up to 14 people in the house at peak occupancy. Add in my in-laws for Christmas dinner and you can see how much time I had for cartooning.

We all had a great time with no major family blow-ups. Mostly thanks to uncle Jeff who brought his Wii system. This gave us something to do during those bitterly cold days when not even the locals wanted to go outside.

I didn’t get that coveted new Mac Laptop (just eBay’d a used video card for the forth time for the old Dell) but had a better time giving Anne the first component of her equally coveted Sonos sound system. Kids got lots of clothes (they are STILL growing!) and other fun stuff. Santa was controlled but generous to everyone else. We mostly had good family time which will last a much longer time.

I hope you all had a great holiday time and fun New Year’s. I’ll get OSS back up to steam soon which will hopefully give you a small modicum of pleasure from time to time. I also plan on some OSS swag. T-shirts? Book? Anyone got some ideas? Thanks for reading and thank you so much for the comments you send. 2010 is going to be a much better year than 2009. . . it better be.

Joe