Um maravilhoso Natal e um próspero Ano Novo!

Written to Smokes Like Lightning by Lightnin Hopkins

"Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length."
- Robert Frost

This will be one of my shortest-ever blog posts, a brief text wishing all of our family and friends um maravilhoso Natal e um próspero Ano Novo!

As regards our own family, Pelle and his girlfriend, Jemma, arrived yesterday at Ninho da Arara, the pousada of a good friend of mine from my Berkeley days, Davis Bales. Pelle and Jemma will unwind for a couple of days after a long, long journey from UK before returning by bus to Taubaté, where Esben and I will pick them up after picking up Johannes, weather gods willing, from São Paulo/Guarulhos – Governor André Franco Montoro International Airport. Weather gods not permitting…we will have to make do with two of Les Trois Mousquetaires. 7-9-13!

For those of you who have not yet registered the monumental event that was my joining Facebook, I have, in fact, recently succumbed to the seductive power of Time Magazine's Person of the Year 2010. I held out for as long as I could, I really did, but in the end the gravitational pull of the more than 500 million people connected to what Esben glibly describes as the world's most time-consuming image management tool was too overpowering for my fragile psyche. We shall see where it all ends, but for now I have ensconced myself in the warm glow of this world's digital hoi polo.

And finally, what would a year-end blog post be if it did not end with a quote from our generation's oracle:

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”
- Oprah Winfrey