A very, very merry Christmas to all!

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There are 988 employees at my firm. The average age is 32. Over the year, we drank over 60,000 free cans of "for clients only" soda, of which none were supposed to be free for employees. These and other oddball facts we learned at our company holiday party yesterday evening. Every year as we grow bigger and bigger, the year-end party grows more impressive, and yesterday, what a grand event indeed.

At 5 pm, we all headed downtown where we ate and drank and laughed and sang and danced and poked fun at our collective selves, all having a fantastic time until eleven o'clock when the event came to a close. The real events, of course were the after-party and the after-after-party-party, when we bar-hopped across Manhattan, many of us beginning at The Hog's Pit and ending at Red Rock's, two of our favourite watering holes. It was a wonderful night out where first-year analysts rubbed elbows with senior managing directors, drinking and singing into the wee hours of the morning.

Me, I coerced quite a few people into buying us rounds of drinks, and by 2 am, I had been on the buying end several times, myself. By 3:30 or so, the bars had begun to thin out, but my group was still all there, bottles in hand and appropriately inebriated. We stayed around a while longer, munching hot dogs off the street vendors and singing raucously into the morning skies.

It was perhaps 5 am or so that we finally all separated, each heading home to our various charges, snuggling into our warm beds and dreading the following morning.

It's not a pretty sight around here today.

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When I started writing this journal some twelve months ago, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. I wasn't sure what I was going to write about, what I was going to say, how often I was going to write, or even why I was writing at all.

Today finds me here again at the keyboard, one year's worth of experience under my belt and not any more sure of what to make of things. I hope it has at least entertained some of you.

Happy first birthday, journal.

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Growing up, I always feared Apack. Apack was my sister's father-in-law, a very proper Chinese man who had found his way to a colonial Trinidad to seek his fortune and raise a family. To me, he was a strict man, the absolute monarch of his household who never understood the antics of a mischievous child. It was only when I reached adolescence that I began to see him as a wonderfully intelligent man, a man well-read and as sharp as a fiddle. I began to spend some time with him, and he told me of his love for poetry and literature. I would talk with him whenever I got the chance, and I sensed a burdened man, a man who had lived through a lot during a tumultuous period in his native China. He fascinated me so, Apack.

When his wife passed away last February, I saw Apack for the first time in many, many years. He was suffering from Alzheimer's, and I was saddened when he at first didn't recognize me. The disease was catching up with him then, but although his memory failed him at times, he maintained the same fierce pride that I recognized so well as a child. When I left, I gave Apack an especially long hug goodbye; I knew it would probably be the last time I would see him alive. I was right. Apack passed away this morning in his sleep. How I admired you so, Apack. Say hi to the angels for me tonight.

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It snowed today. Piles and piles of winter lie soft and crunchy underfoot, and the noises of the city are but muffled murmurs beyond the blankets of white. As evening draws to a close, strong gusts grow weary and are replaced with the gentle winds that stir snowdrifts into delicate patterns, tickling pedestrians a good night.

From my office on the seventeenth floor, St. Patrick's Cathedral looks like a child's castle tonight. Her narrow spires are covered with white and she seems to struggle mightily for air, reaching into the darkened night skies for what the giant skyscrapers flanking her corners have stolen from her. Give me back my dignity, I beg of you, she cries.

When I leave work tonight, I walk past Rockefeller Center on my way to the bus stop. Across the cathedral, mighty Atlas glares down at me, a winter hood blanketing his head and chest as tiny snowflakes dance impassioned around him.

Throngs of pedestrians are about even on a night like tonight, and despite the cold and forbidding weather, camera flashes go off as tourists jockey about to capture their personal Kodak moments. I first saw her as she posed in front of the enormous tree: a tiny Asian woman bundled in a red full-length coat, perhaps five feet tall and a frozen smile to match everyone else's around her. Her companion, a handsome man in a suit stood motionless as she smiled for the camera. She picked him up and shuffled a few inches for a better shot. Her companion was a cutout board.

Another woman took the photos of the tiny Asian woman in the red coat and her cutout board companion, and passers-by began to smile at them. The woman returned their smiles as they pointed. "Must be her boyfriend," a man in a red baseball cap said. "That's nice. That's nice."

I followed the three of them around as the Asian woman and her cutout board companion posed for several photos around Rockefeller, each time drawing questioning stares and patient smiles. As they waited in line to pose in front of the ice rink, my curiosity caught up with me and I walked up to them. "The cutout board," I said. "I'm curious. Who is he?"

The Asian woman looked at me and smiled. "This is..." Her eyes dropped momentarily to the snow-covered ground and then fixed unapologetically onto mine. "This is my father."

As she posed, her eyes seemed to fill with a hundred thousand memories, and she smiled countless what ifs and if I only hads into the waiting camera lens. And in the chilly night air, with the hundreds of people laughing happily about us, I felt a twinge of sadness as they walked away, the tiny Asian woman in the red coat and her father.

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My legs hurt. My calves hurt. My me hurts.

We went skiing over the weekend. Up to Ludlow, Vermont, where we spent two nights with Victor and Chris at the lodge at the base of Okemo. Our first ski trip of the season, and it was great. No broken bones, no sprained backs, no whiplashed necks. And more importantly, no bunny slopes.

Yes, my fourth attempt at skiing went smoothly, and despite my complaints today, we had lots of fun. And even though I managed to somehow bruise my left knee, at least I didn't rip anything like the last time. Hopefully, this season will go by without me requiring four months of physical therapy like earlier this year.

Now if I could just lift my arm...

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