It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

So we made it across the pond.

This morning, so my kid won't have that "just-had-a-haircut" look for the family portrait scheduled for next week, I took him to the barber shop that my husband has gone to since he wasn't much older than Munchkin.

Sure, Munchkin was completely uncooperative and there were tears and a helluva lot of shorn hair that ended up in my cleavage. But the woman who cut his hair offered him a "sucka" and comforted him in that comforting New England brogue that needs no "r's." And as she leaned in close to make sure the air around his ears was cut clean, the smell of clam chowder and freshly baked bread wafted into my nostrils.

It's good to be home.