I decide to spend Christmas with my family this year. We're not all Buddhist, but we celebrate it anyway, sort of. We do the secular stuff, but none of the religious or spiritual stuff. We don't do the usual meditation or fasting. We don't read the sutras or restrict our diets. We don't even play Yahtzee or lawn darts. We just sort of sit around with the TV on, chat, exchange presents, and eat tuna right out of the can. It's actually been pretty quiet.

It might surprise you to learn that I don't have any particular bits of wisdom to share with you today. Sorry. Instead, I thought I'd give you a little window into my family.

My dad spent most of the morning sorting through the six boxes of Fallen Empires Magic: The Gathering cards that we got him. Then he hinted that he might be willing to try Yu-Gi-Oh for Valentine's Day and promptly fell asleep on top of a pile of Icatian Skirmishers.

My mom tested out tuna all day. You may not know this, but cats don't have the easiest time getting canned tuna. Grocery stores are unwilling to allow cats near the canned fish section for reasons that are, I think, opaque to all of us. It's probably some kind of wacky Victorian bias. Who knows. Anyway, cats usually end up getting canned tuna through a sort of black market. While I'd like to say otherwise, not all of those who run tuna adhere to high standards of quality, and we all do well to check our tuna. Mom opened can after can and had me test it for poisons or taints. So I wouldn't be biased by my eyesight, she blindfolded me and made me eat a little from each can. Then she'd kick me to see if I was dead or not. She works so hard to take care of all of us.

Uncle Pete is, in fact, a tuna runner. He was pretty busy last week importing tuna from Lichtenstein, so he slept on top of a copy of Eddie Izzard's Dressed to Kill until about 3, when he had a hairball. After that, he moved to Circle and went back to sleep.

Pete's wife, Aunt Flora, races cars. Unfortunately for her, she managed to flip her 1:8 scale Testarossa Spyder two days ago and is currently in a full-body cast. She couldn't eat, so Mom made us all put our tuna next to her for a few minutes so she could enjoy the smell.

My cousin Fuffywuffykins is the family gadget geek, and while she's been on my parents' couch for the last month, nobody has successfully spoken with her for more than about six seconds at a time because she is hooked up to her new iPod Zepto, a Nintendo DS, a Blackberry, and iPhone, a Kindle, and a Pocket Fisherman. She did give me a very nice iPod Nano, though. She tossed it my way when her Zepto arrived in the mail. All I have to do now is put all the bits back in and I'll never be away from my music again.

Great-uncle Tamerlane Nobunaga Cochrane Zhuge Skoochybottoms von Nelson is also here for the day. We're not really sure what he does for a living, but he tells the greatest stories. I can't quite remember any of them right now, but I'll see if I can remember some of them later. They're great. You'll laugh.

My nephew Doug was going to join us, but I guess he was kept late at work. He just started a new job as a therapist at a pit bull rescue center, and he probably couldn't get away. He's such a workaholic.

Finally, my other cousin, also named Doug, did manage to make it. He's actually allergic to tuna, so he and I broke out a canister of unagi and played parcheesi.

Anyhow, that's my family, and we all got along really well this holiday season. Hopefully you and yours will get along equally well, whatever you do or do not celebrate. Unagi! Out!