It was almost 130am before I went to sleep this morning. For the first time in what feels like weeks but is probably longer, I actually wanted to to go to sleep at a reasonable hour, and this time instead of my brain just refusing to shut up, I had to stay awake because there was turkey stock being made in the kitchen. When I woke up this morning, after not enough sleep, it was worth it. We’re going to have some pretty boss turkey soup tonight, I tell you what.

So while I was up late, waiting for the turkey bones and stuff to turn into stock, I worked on getting RetroPie up and running, so I could be certain that the software was working before I started the complicated part of building my Picade. It was incredibly easy, even though I had to use tools on Windows to make the micro SD card stuff work, and I think it’s my favorite emulator I have ever used. Emulation Station is gorgeous, and easily the nicest emulation frontend I have ever used. If you’ve been dying to play abandonware from the old DOS days, Atari 2600 games, or replay those NES games that you totally own legally but don’t have a machine to play them on, it’s just fantastic.

Christmas was quiet and relaxed, here in Castle Wheaton. My boys were both here, as were their significant others. Ryan’s married now, and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of addressing his wife, Claudette, who I absolutely adore, as “the other Mrs. Wheaton”. We all had a huge dinner, watched Gremlins and A Christmas Story, and embraced the simple joy of being together.

I find the whole idea of a War on Christmas to be incredibly stupid, a scam perpetrated on mostly well-meaning people (and some incredibly stupid people) by grifters who know better. It seems like a lot of of the “Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men” part of the Christian myth is intentionally disregarded or otherwise ignored by the folks who have signed up to be soldiers in the war to defend the whole thing, but I still sincerely hope that everyone who chose to celebrate Christmas was as happy and surrounded by love as we were, in this house of heathens.

It’s also two years in a row that Anne held up her end of the Don’t Get Each Other Anything bargain. Two years out of 21 isn’t that great, to be honest, but two years in a row is a very big deal.

I feel like I should get back to work, but it’s really hard to find the motivation. 2016 is really setting fire to the world as it races toward its end, isn’t it? Someone on Twitter said that they were staying up until midnight on the 31st for the first time in years, just because they wanted to see this year of so much awful shit finally fucking die already.

Oh, and I had my own idea for the end of the year:

At 11:59pm on December 31, we'll all get a text alert from an unknown source that just says "THE ARISTOCRATS!" and 2016 will make sense.

— Wil Wheaton (@wilw) December 26, 2016

Finally: Rest in peace, Carrie Fisher. If you only knew her from Star Wars, please take some time to find out about all the other amazing things she did. She was a brilliant writer, one of the most talented and prolific script doctors in Hollywood, an outspoken advocate for mental health care and addiction treatment, and just one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.

It would be great if 2016 could stop taking the brilliant artists we love. These daily reminders of the brevity of our lives and the fragile mortality we all cling to are getting to be a little much. You made your point, 2016. We get it.