And all through the house, people were cooking knödel and seitan and vegan cookies and decorating the tree with emtpy beer cans and I’d be willing to bet that there is at least one mouse stirring, somewhere in the joker’s head statue above the entrance where they’ve made their scratchy, squeaky nest, and dreaming of all of the crumbs that we will leave behind after the feasting and the drinking and the ugliest-present secret santa.

Happy winter (the days are officially getting longer now, a whole minute every day), happy dumpster feista (if there is one time of year were mind-boggling heaps of food are thrown out and kept fresh and cold by the weather for days, it’s now), and may we all survive the torments of another holiday season and live to see another new year. Prost.