Let the fun begin!

I'm officially on vacation (or "holiday" as they say here). I was already planning to take the last two weeks of the year off, but then I realised I had more vacation time that I was going to lose if I didn't use it, so I decided to take today off and start vacation a day early. Other than going to Rome for the New Year, we have no formal plans, which is exactly how I want it. My mom arrives from San Diego tomorrow morning (amazingly, it will be the first time I've seen her in two years...that's one of the downsides of living half a world away). I'm sure we'll find every Christmas market within a 50-mile radius of Basel and try to get up to the mountains at some point, but priority #1 is just to get caught up, relax, recharge my batteries and don't do anything more intellectually taxing than read a novel or do crossword puzzles.