The most successful thing I’ve helped introduce into the kid’s life recently: a pair of Mollie Katzen cookbooks, “Pretend Soup” and “Salad People,” which are set up so that small children can do most of the cooking themselves and occasionally ask a grown-up to serve as their sous-chef. He made miso-almond dipping sauce (to go with raw vegetables) and popovers for dinner this weekend. They were delicious, and he was very proud of himself.

Otherwise: just luxuriating in the end-of-year slowdown, taking care of some tasks that have been waiting to get done for a while, slowly reading through the San Francisco Panorama, prepping a couple of projects that might go live in the new year, and listening to an enormous number of old instrumental soul hits for a secret project. The days are a little too short and dim to be merry and bright at the moment, but I’m working on it.