Sarah got a new digital camera for Christmas. This camera replaces the two that ended up broken last year.

Sarah has bad luck with expensive gadgets.

The day she got this camera she lost her cell phone.

I can tell we're going to have a good house for the Whirled News show when there are already extra chairs set up when I get to the theater.

Chin: 85 reservations. More than any other show at the theater. With walk-in traffic we should easily sell out.

Busy night. Whirled News upstairs at 8. Diplomat Motel downstairs at 10:30. Having two shows in a row is kind of win-win. If the first show goes badly, you have a chance to redeem yourself with the second show. If the first goes well, you can ride that momentum into the second.

Tonight was a good night. Both shows went well.

Back in Chicago.

Last night I was on 'Chicago Tonight.' WTTW called iO and Second City looking for performers to be part of a live "irreverent" round-table discussion on the biggest news stories of '07. Glynn (far right) and I represented Whirled News, while Seth and Joey were there through Second City's Touring Company. It was all thrown together very last minute. I don't mind admitting I was nervous.

As we were about to go live, the stage manager hooked up our mics and checked our light.

Stage Manager: [pointing at Glynn] Number 4, you look pretty hot. [chuckles] Don't worry. That's a lighting joke.

We all threw out the obvious responses to that. "I'd like to take you out to dinner. That's a lighting joke." "Can I kiss you on the mouth? Lighting joke."

Stage Manager: What are you all here for? What do you do?
Glynn: That's a good question.
Joey: I guess we're... "local comedians"? Or at least that's what they'll probably introduce us as. Something like that.
Stage Manager: Oh. Comedians. So... my joke probably wasn't that funny, huh?
Me: No. No. It was good.
Seth: We laughed.
Joey: It was funny.

We try a new board game every year. This year it was Apples to Apples.

Dad: Wait, how is "flipping the car" considered "radical"? That doesn't make any sense.
Mom: I thought it was pretty good.
Julie: How is Mom winning this game?
Mom: Real nice.
Sherry: I think this game is good for us because you don't have to be smart and know Trivial Pursuit answers.
Dad: Speak for yourself.

Me: What are you watching? 'Kate and Allie'?
Allie: Yeah. I like this show.
Me: Do you like it because it has your name in the title?
Allie: No. Mom said the same thing.
TV: "Talk to me Allie."

My Christmas gift to Ty and Will was a "Clap and Laugh Microphone." It's a working microphone with buttons on the base that you can step on to make applause or laughing noises.

They're both too young to understand what stand-up comedy is, but they enjoyed yelling into the mic and stomping on the laugh button as hard as they could.

Christmas Eve with my Dad's extended family.

Grandpa Paul hands out presents to all the kids. Then it's time for the gag gifts. Golf shirts that read, "Get Some Balls." Things like that. Browns fans get Bengals shirts and vice versa.

Years ago one of my relatives had the bad luck to, shortly after hemorrhoid surgery, shit the bed while staying at someone else's house. Every year since he's gotten some kind of poop-related gift. Toilet paper. Adult diapers. This was the first year that he didn't get one. So maybe some embarrassing jokes do die down with time. After, say, a decade.

Finally there's the White Elephant exchange. Gifts are opened, gifts are stolen. I don't participate because I don't fish, golf or follow sports in general. You can see my dad at the top of the picture examining a present carefully before choosing it. He tends to have bad luck in the exchange.

Dad: This could be a fishing pole... but it could be a plunger. You have to be careful.

It was a fishing pole. But it was eventually stolen. The next gift he opened was the DVD 'Harold and Maude.'

Dad: What's this? Hey, anybody want to steal this? Nobody?

I tried to tell him that it's actually a pretty decent movie, but my description didn't sound appealing to anyone.

Mom: Maybe there's money hidden inside.

The family signed Grandma Anne (my Mom's mother) out of the nursing home and took her to Pizza Hut.

Allie: How are you doing?
Grandma: I could be better.

Grandma had a little bit of a cold and was unhappy with her hair. The woman who usually does her hair hasn't been back to the nursing home since her husband drowned in a vat of manure.

Mostly, she's unhappy to be at the nursing home at all. Understandable. But since she signed everything over to Uncle Kenny, we're pretty much powerless to do anything. And unfortunately, it's easy to get tired of the complaining. As Mom said to her during our Thanksgiving visit, "Well, it could be worse. You could live in Iraq."

Still, it was nice to see her. And she seemed happy to get out into the world. By the end of the meal, though, she seemed quiet and worn-out. My brother-in-law, Matt, leaned over the table and asked, "You following Rooshie basketball?"

Grandma's head popped up, and she answered in a voice more emphatic than anything she'd said all day, "You BET I do."

Hometown, Ohio for the holidays. When I came in the door, Dad was watching 'Christmas Vacation' on his new television.

Dad: Randy Quaid. He's pretty good.
Mom: I don't think I've ever seen this before.
Dad: You've seen this before.
Mom: I don't think so.
Dad: Well you've led a sheltered life, Doris.

Later, in the car...

Dad: I always liked Rodney Dangerfield. He had a lot of good one liners. "My parents moved when I was a kid. I found 'em."
Mom: [laughing] Tell Sherry.
Sherry: [taking off headphones] What?
Dad: "I don't get no respect. My parents moved when I was a kid. But I found 'em."
Sherry: I can't hear you.
Mom: He said, "My parents... when he was a kid, they moved. But he found them."

That night, my youngest sister, Allie, talked me into getting some drinks with her college-aged friends. They seemed nice. Unprompted by me, they started talking about stand-up comedians they like. Some I agreed with, some I didn't, but I kept my opinions to myself.

Allie: I just like it when black people make fun of white people.

My annual holiday meat-scursion with some friends. Hansen (far left), Nick (second), Trupe, Meador, Young and Martin (not pictured, due to having a show during the first half of the evening).

We had dinner at Fogo de Chao, a fancy Brazilian steakhouse, where endless skewers of meat are brought to your table. This year we all ate "too much" rather than "dangerously too much." We're getting older.

After that we went to one of Hansen's lawyer hang-outs, the bar in the Four Seasons Hotel.

Me: Should we exchange gifts here.
Nick: I don't know. This place is too fancy for some of my gifts.

We were going to take taxis from Fogo to the Four Seasons, but as we stepped out of the restaurant, the driver of a ridiculous stretch Hummer limo, approached us and said, "I'll take you all there. $35."

Hansen: Oh, we HAVE to do this. I'm paying. Everyone in.
Me: Maybe could he drop us off a couple blocks away from the hotel?
Hansen: Oh no. Front door. All of us crawling out of this thing.
Meador: Hansen, is there a weird experience you can't resist?
Trupe: I think Hansen has a novelty gland.