Monday--The Christmas Eve Candlelight Service or Misa de Noche Buena was very beautiful. There were candelabras at the ends of every other pew, or so; candles in the windows; two tapered candle holders in the front of the church (like the ones people use for weddings); and little hand-held candles we lit as we sang "Silent Night" in Swedish, English, and Spanish, the three languages of the church's history. The church was packed.

Tuesday--A very quiet day laced with some regret/guilt for not being with my family. It was beautiful weather. (I know I overuse that adjective in describing southern California's weather!) I was going to be ambitious and go hiking in a nearby canyon but settled for sitting in the back yard under the clothes' lines and reading Tokien's The Two Towers.

Wednesday--I made a (successful) early morning foray to Talbot's and then went to work.

Thursday--Another day at work. It is pretty quiet at this time of year. Not too quiet for telemarketing, though. So my colleague and I monitored some telemarketing reps. who are selling one of our products. Listening in on telemarketing calls is almost worse than receiving them because you simultaneously empathize with the person being called and with the person who has to try sell something. We make sure our reps. only do a soft sell and end the call after the second "No, I'm not interested," or even after the first refusal in no-rebuttal states.