christmas day was relaxing as we didn't really go anywhere or do anything. caran, joe, and little ben came over to open presents in the morning before they had to go home to have joe's family over for dinner.

that was a wood panel with little windows and doors on it held closed by real metal latches and hinges. joe is a contractor so it'll give ben the chance to play around with the kinds of stuff daddy uses at work sometimes.

it started raining just as we were loading the gifts into their car before they left. afterwards i spent the rest of the day playing the myst iv: revelation game i'd received the night before. later in the evening we watched ragtime, a movie based on my favorite book of the same title by e.l.doctorow. unfortunately the film wasn't great, and as seems to always be the case the book is much better than then movie. the book is so expansive that i don't think there's any way you could capture it all in even a very long movie. a few years ago i met doctorow and had my copy of the book signed. my friend charles, who was with me at the time and is a fan of the musical version, asked doctorow what he thought of the film and broadway versions. he simply replied, eh. now i can sort of see why he felt that way. still it was intersting to see someone's interpretation of it.