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Wes and I had our Christmas morning before he headed out for work at the hospital. He has off Thursday and Friday, but alas, not Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve, or New Years Day. I agree with him, though, that it's okay. We don't have kids, and we're happy to celebrate whenever and in whatever way we can. He looked at the list of attendings a few days ago and was bothered by the number of doctors with small children who were working on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day (and who he knew celebrated the holiday) while other single or childless doctors -- or many who don't celebrate Christmas at all -- weren't working. I guess there's no law that says you have to martyr yourself if you don't have a spouse or kids or a belief in Santa or Jesus, but his saying it at least gives me hope that he'll do his best to be around once our family grows. And if you can't be, I'll still be okay with it. His services make other people's holidays safer and happier.

I finally did my Christmas shopping yesterday. It was actually nice -- the first time I shopped the day before Christmas. I walked from the condo building north about 2 miles, hitting about 10 shops for various purposes on the way, and then saw a movie by myself at the end. The weather was nice (for Chicago), the stores pretty empty, and the movie (the new National Treasure) quite cute.

Wes got a themed gift. He got 6 items, all of which corresponded with an event to which we have or will get tickets: Christmas boxers, which go with a Second City Christmas revue we're going to on Thursday night; a blue-gray sweater and flannel shirt, which go with tickets to the Blue Man Group next week; a DK book on opera, which goes with tickets to The Barber of Seville at theh Chicago Lyric Opera; postcards of Edward Hopper's works, which go with an exhibit of Hopper's work in March at the Art Institute; a copy of A Comedy of Errors, which goes with a showing of the same play at the Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier; and finally Frank Lloyd Wright inspired coasters for the office, which go with the annual spring Wright Homewalk in Oak Park of ten or so of Wright's famous houses. He also got a Curious George calendar with all of the dates of the events so he can request those days or nights off. I don't know if we'll go to all of the events (we've only actually purchased tickets to one), but it was fun to find little gifts to go with each, trying to make them practical and useful in their own right. Oh, and the Red Spice is just something he needed from Walgreens.

Wes didn't get me a gift. Santa, however, thoughtfully brought me something Tiffany blue -- a new Ipod Nano to replace my old and ailing Ipod Mini, the battery life of which is a few short hours. The Nano can run for 24 hours continuously and holds up to 8 hours of video. Ahh, technology.