One of my pet peeves over the holidays --- strings of holiday lights that do not work. We have had a number of holiday gatherings at our office space, thus in addition to my “famous” turquoise tree in my office, I wanted to place white lights around greens on the bookshelves in the larger area. I brought in a large plastic container of lights from our attic that I have stored through the years, certain that I had more than enough to do the job. I was so sadly wrong. Going through TWENTY sets of lights, I found ONE that worked three quarters of the way. Luckily, it was one of the long strings so I could use it.

The holidays are here, and, is it just me or did December seem to come faster this year? My lists have lists, but I am vowing to remember what this season is about and focus on that. It's been a hectic year, and thus I look forward to the third week in December when our family heads down to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. We've been doing this for five years now. There's a lovely church we go to on Christmas Eve where there is a lovely candlelit service and we immediately feel part of the community there. I love this time when we just hang out, read, watch movies and play games. The beach has always been a wonderful reflex place for me, and it's going to be terrific to be there. We have been renting the same house for a few years, and the owners asked me to write a piece for them about how we celebrate there for the local newspaper. That piece has been fun to write as it brings up a number of wonderful memories. The holidays are great for that!

This was one eventful week. I kicked it off literally with HBO’s airing of The 25th Anniversary of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert. I tuned in expecting another ho-hum music event and was more than pleasantly surprised to see a show with great --- and unexpected --- pairings for the performances. It was four hours of fabulous rock and roll, and I confess I was dancing around the family room with the surround sound cranked up. I saw it as a brilliant way to exercise off the Turkey Eat-athon.

Hello, and welcome to the latest newsletter from GraphicNovelReporter.com, the first after Thanksgiving. I hope you had a nice, relaxing, and good-food-filled holiday. I did, although I’m still recovering from too much food and too much relaxing. It was a nice week, but I’m far behind on work, and that includes reading.