Saturday, November 24

A pleasant Thanksgiving weekend. I had the traditional Turkey dinner with Michael, three of my children, my dad and friend Hilary on Tuesday. Wednesday was David and Katie's trip to Virginia, which went without a snag or delay, thank goodness. During the next couple of days, we ate on the turkey and saw some area sights: a holiday display at the local botanical gardens, a display of Christmas trees at the old, quite beautiful Embassy Theater downtown, and then yesterday, the Notre Dame campus (and an outlet mall on the way, at which I got some great stuff for Katie at an Oshkosh outlet for 70% off, but don't tell her, okay?). Today, it's back to just Michael, Joseph and me.

Much work coming up in the next week: a big article for Catholic Parent magazine which I'm doing as a last-minute replacement for another writer, various columns, and a piece on Tolkein for OSV, for which I'm interviewing Joseph Pearce, the author of two books on Tolkein - Tolkein: Celebration, an anthology centered on the specificialy theological character of Tolkein's work and a biographical work, Tolkein: Man and Myth, as well as several other books, included the highly recommended Literary Converts: Spiritual Inspiration in an Age of Unbelief.



Christmas is coming. If you have a child or young person in your life who wouldn't cringe too much at the sight of a religiously-themed book as a gift, don't forget my Loyola Kids' Book of Saints or either of the Prove It books. If you'd like an autographed bookplate for any of the books, let me know, and I'll send you one.