In 2011, I had intended to get all my business systems in place, stabilize cash flow, begin earning money at the educational website, triple traffic at my business website, live a more balanced life, bring creativity back into my non-work life, and strengthen my relationships.

These were not SMART goals, SMART standing for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. The only measurable item on the list was tripling our traffic, a fairly arbitrary goal. Our traffic is actually up by 65.79%, which is quite good for a website but a dismal failure if the goal was to triple it.

Otherwise, the goals were so undefined that it’s impossible to tell whether they were met or not. I don’t even know what business systems I ought to have in place, so how can I tell whether I got them all covered? We might be said to have stabilized cash flow, int he sense that we don’t have to worry about paying the bills, but it isn’t exactly predictable from one month to the next. What does “stabilize” mean here? The educational website earned about a thousand dollars, which is money, but is it enough to feel that it’s earning its keep?

I lived a more balanced life, in comparison to the preceding year or three. What did I mean by that, though? A 40 hour work week? I met that goal, pretty much — according to Toggl, I averaged 41 hours a week in 2011. Having something else to talk about besides business? Maybe not. I did manage to exercise regularly most of the year, I went to Rome for a week (it was business, but it was also wonderful), I settled into a church, I got some sewing and knitting done, I bought some furniture (it was for the office, but it’s also pretty), I got involved with music, I read novels. That’s more balanced than 2010, but is it balanced enough to have met the goal?

Creativity and relationships? Who knows? I had both creativity and relationships in my life last year.  Were they improved in comparison to the year before? I don’t even have a metric for that.

This year, I plan to have goals SMART enough that I can tell whether or not I met them.

I’ve been working through 52 Small Changes: One Year to a Happier, Healthier You, a book which offers one change to make each week so that in a year you’ll be a Happier, Healthier You. I received this book to review, and found it sensible and practical. I was stuck on “Keep a food journal” for about a month, but now I’m using an app on my phone to do this and I was able to move on this week to “Keep a positive attitude.” Over the New Year’s weekend, I plan to develop some SMART goals for 2012. The combination of the two ought to let me start 2012 with a less wimpy set of goals, one that will allow me to decide, next year at this time, whether I actually met my goals or not.

The song of the day is “The March of the Three Kings.”I only know this song in French, but on Christmas Eve #2 son found Bing Crosby singing it on Spotify, so you can definitely hear the story of the three kings and their retinue making their way through Provence to visit the Christ Child. It’s geographically implausible, but it’s a jolly story.

This is the time of year for developing goals and plans for the new year, I always think. Admittedly, I’ve been spending most of my free time playing Civilization: the Board Game, and not thinking deeply about the future. I’m beginning to think about it, though, in the back of my mind.

In Civilization, there are four ways to win. I always hedge my bets and try to work toward two or three initially till I see which one looks as though it’ll be the best bet for me. There may be a metaphor for life in there.

I start each year planning to have a balanced life, with goals involving my physical, spiritual, financial, and mental well being, and by February I’m totally focused on something — lately, it’s been work, but at other times it has been my kids or community service or a hobby.

Civilization is a board game, so I hope we don’t have to conclude that it’s true that we can’t win in several different ways at once in real life, and must focus on one thing. After all, I have all the non-business goals left over from the past few years. I may recycle them into this year’s goals.

Today’s song is “All My Heart This Night Rejoices,”an extremely beautiful song. I worked yesterday while #2 son mixed up cookie doughs, and then baked intensively while waiting for the other kids to arrive, so we now have approximately two quajillion cookies. I’ll be spreading them around a bit.

#2 daughter brought us a new movie to watch: the new CGA version of “A Christmas Carol.” I had wanted to get people out to look at lights, but no one was in the mood for that, so we watched the movie and then played games.

We’re going to bake some more today, and put out a buffet spread, and play more games. When people get up, I’ll add some pictures here.

‘Tis the time of Yuletide Glee! This is also the song of the day.

This is a nice madrigal, said to have been written by Thomas Morley, the main man of madrigals, in the 16th century. However, the lyrics make this implausible:
‘Tis the time of Yuletide glee, all the world should joyful be
Let us sing right merrily.
Though the frost may chill the ground, and the snow lie all around
Let your song most mirthful sound.

Be ye then cheery, no man be dreary, let none be weary,
This day should joyful be,
‘Tis the time of Yuletide glee.

There are carols in the air happy music everywhere
Bidding us to banish care.
From the houses all alight shine the Christmas trees this night
And the world is all aright.

Be ye then cheery, no man be dreary, let none be weary,
This day should joyful be,
‘Tis the time of Yuletide glee.

There were no Christmas trees in England in the 16th centry, since the were introduced by Queen Victoria as a loving tribute to her Albert, or perhaps the other way round. In any case, they were a German custom unknown in England at that time. So the words have changed since Morley wrote it, or he didn’t write it, or perhaps “Christmas trees” had some other meaning in those days.

No matter. Tis the time of yuletide glee and there’s no reason for us to be troubled by these little things. I have already baked some cookies this morning. In fact, I have already burned some cookies this morning. I think I should dress and shower and have breakfast and otherwise wake up properly so I won’t burn any more.

I plan a domestic day today, with just a few hours of work and much celebration. That’s the plan.

Today’s song is “Come Ye Lofty, Come Ye Lowly,” one of the joyful French carols meant for dancing. I heard it this morning as part of Holst’s Christmas Day and couldn’t find a good recording of it for you on its own. You can certainly enjoy the whole piece, though.

We all went to see Christmas Arthur yesterday, and went to the annual church breakfast potluck this morning. Everyone went to the movie, but only the boys came with me to the breakfast. They got to see people they hadn’t seen since Sunday School years ago and catch up with the parents of people they still hang with, so I think it was fun for them as well as for me.

I made a breakfast casserole using frozen potato shreds with diced ham, shredded cheese, and red bell peppers. I mixed 5 eggs with a cup or two of sour cream and a good tablespoonful of Dijob mustard and poured the custard over the ham and potatoes and baked it in the oven. I decorated it with a bow made of red pepper, and it was all eaten at the potluck, so I guess that’s a good sign.

The boys sloped off to go rockclimbing after breakfast, but I stayed for Sunday School (we finished discussing Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and then for church. We ended with lots of happy chatting and calling out, “Merry Christmas!” to one another, which is a wonderful way to spend the morning.

Now comes knitting and baking and possibly even cleaning.

Autocorrect humor isn’t really funny. People will be texting each other and suddenly they find they’ve said, “Yeah I’m excited about my new job. Just picked up my new unicorn” instead of “uniform.” The recipient cracks up and posts it online. Only most of the time the mixup that gets posted online is unrepeatable words, often in conversations with people’s moms.

I just read a whole page of these things, laughing like a deranged person all alone in the living room.

There are several possible lessons here.

1. Proofreading is important even while texting.
2. Facebook links cause people to waste time in new and uncharacteristic ways.
3. I need tea and possibly even breakfast.

It may also be that I’m so happy about having #2 Son home for the holidays and also about the three new retainer clients we signed up yesterday that I’m willing to laugh about stuff that isn’t necessarily that funny, and that’s a good thing.
 
In that spirit, I offer you Marshmallow World, a cheerfully surreal song from the mid 20th century. #1 Daughter and I went to a Christmas party yesterday at the shop of one of our competitors. I was looking forward to it. Our company is too small and too family to have an office party, and I was missing that. This is because my idea of office parties is based on The Desk Set. In real life, I’m told, office parties don’t involve sloping off work to drink champagne and sing songs. They involve hanging out after work with people you don’t like much.

In any case, at the BBQ someone mentioned that there hadn’t been a really good new Christmas song since the 1960s. I could tell this wasn’t the crowd in which to bring up Born on a New Day,so I just agreed. Another person averred that this was becase we didn’t have the strong family values of the mid 20th century. This was followed by a 40 minute monologue of her experiences as an adoptive mom, when honestly I would have been much more interested in continuing the discussion of carols.

For example, can we say that “Marshmallow World,” written in 1949 by Sigman and DeRose but not really popular until the 1960s, shows strong family values? One of the more interesting verses goes like this:

“Those are marshmallow clouds being friendly,
In the arms of the evergreen trees,
And the sun is red like a pumpkin head,
It’s shining so your nose won’t freeze.”

Really, the whole song is very stupid. It’s cheery, though, so if you’re out doing holiday shopping or something you can sing it gleefully. You can also sing “Born on a New Day” if you’re not up to envisioning the landscape as a sticky mess.

Today’s song is “The Christmas Waltz.” The link will take you to a Youtube version with the words so you can sing along. This is the song for today because I’m getting very excited about Christmas, and this is that kind of song.

It has been an exciting week at work, and today promises to be equally great, but the big thing is that #2 Son has arrived home. I was supposed to go caroling, and I was sorry to miss that, but it was great to see him and we had good talks.

Today we’re going to a competitor’s barbecue. We like to keep things friendly. We’re also meeting with our new worker, a student of mine this past term. He seems to be smart, computer savvy, and articulate, based on his performance in class, and we’re hoping he turns out to be a good worker.

Then I think we might go to the movies. I have some knitting to finish up, and also some errands to do, and I plan to make these undertakings as festive as possible. I will certainly be singing “The Christmas Waltz.”

I have twelve websites to work on today, so I’m giving you a quick, sprightly song: The Shepherd’s Pipe Carol. Written by John Rutter in 1966 when he was still a student, this is a good song to play while working, because it has a bouncy tune and lots of cheerful flute stuff going on.

It’s not that great for casual singing, though, since without the flute and piccolo it isn’t much. Here are the lyrics in case you’re determined, but I think that the first time you sing, “May I come with you, shepherd boy piping merrily?” without the pleasure of looking forward to the piping, you’ll relegate it to “Frosty the Snowman” status.

Never mind. Life is real, life is earnest, and there’s lots of work to do!

This morning we sang our Bach cantata, and it went far less badly than I had expected. We had a couple of violins, a viola, a cello, and an assortment of woodwinds, the soloists were quite good, and the choir didn’t actually give up and quit singing at any point.

If we could start each day with a rousing cantata played with chamber ensemble, we’d all do better at work, I’m sure.

The cantata in question, Bach’s cantata based on “Sleepers, Awake,” has some peculiarities. First, it’s about the five wise virgins and the five foolish ones, though the church staff spoke of “bridesmaids” rather than virgins. This cantata also uses the metaphor of Christ as the bridegroom and the church as the bride, which we don’t do so much nowadays. Thus, the duets consist of a soprano and a bass trilling, “Come quickly!” and “I come! I come quickly!” at one another about 97 times, wrapping things up with a bit of harmonizing on the theme of eternal rapture in flowery fields. A bit different from the usual Christmas lyrics.

It’s also more focused on the second coming of Christ than on the first. Evangelical churches usually get into the second coming a lot more than we mainstream Protestants do, and yet they don’t usually embrace Advent, with its wide range of songs about the return of Christ.

The best plan may be to sing the thing in German. This would also keep us from having to sing “Where? Where? Where?” and “So, So, So” all the time, not to mention the whole “Ye maids beware” thing, which sounds as though they’re in danger, not as though they’re having to run buy more oil because they didn’t check their cupboards when they should have.

I thought, while the scripture was being read, of all the cases in which I’m like the foolish virgins, who run out of oil through poor preparation, rather than the wise virgins, who brought flasks of oil with them. I don’t ever mean to be that way, yet still it happens.

I came home and put a nice pan of Ham and Potatoes Gratinee into the over, did an hour or two of work, and then settled back down to knit presents. You can see the beginnings of a hat at left and a couple pairs of legwarmers in a welter of stuff at right.

I watched “The Nutcracker” while knitting, and then #1 son came in and we discussed Romantic British poetry and plans for Christmas Eve. He proposes a larger meat and cheese tray this year than in the past, and — since Christmas Eve is on a Saturday — opening the traditional new board game early enough that we can play it all day. Usually we have to wait for people to get home from work, but we are all free on that day, so we figure we can celebrate all day long.

For today’s song. I offer you “Love Came Down at Christmas.” I love this song, and I rather think that it is as close to a Bach cantata as most of us are likely to get while hanging around the fire at home, knitting. I like the rendition by Jars of Clay , but you need to sing it in a round if you’re going for echoes of Bach at all.

To me, this is a very pretty song,and very sweet. It is by Christina Rossetti, who may not be among the official British Romantic Poets like Coleridge and Shelley, but she was certainly romantic, and even Romantic in the sense of being a mystical nature and emotions kind of poet rather than a logical one.

We decided that #1 son is a Platonist. You don’t run into many of those these days.