Hot chocolate is definitely on the agenda tonight. I even picked up candy canes for us...like when you were a kid. [ She’s not that little girl anymore; grown into the kind of person that Oliver couldn’t have imagined, beautiful and intelligent, better than him in the best of ways. Letting his arm slip around her, he sunk back against the sofa, giving a nod of his head in response ]

Could be worse, all things considered. One of the winters I was away...I spent it in Russia, and that gave a new definition to being cold.