This is still the best time of the year

I haven't been posting as much lately, and our three other posters seem to have vanished completely, but it's understandable.

Unless you're living at the YMCA, heating Top Ramen in a cup and re-reading "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," this is a pretty busy time for most of us.

Editor's note: Where did that image come from?

We'll be leaving a little later this morning to go to the mountains, where we'll spend Christmas Eve and the better part of Christmas Day with our son, his girlfriend and her family. With both our kids grown, we're fortunate to still have one of them around for one more family Christmas.

Because really, family is what Christmas is all about. I could probably count on one hand the specific Christmas gifts I remember receiving over the years, even though I'm sure I wanted some of them desperately at the time.

But I'll never forget the look on my kids' faces when they got gifts from us they had been wanting but weren't expecting to receive.

I don't really have a favorite Christmas. This will be my 16th with Nicole and all of them have been special, even if a few of the early ones involved a little more drama than I would have preferred.

One that stands out for a different reason was 1989. I was working in Reno that year and had college basketball games to cover in Los Angeles on the 23rd and in Reno on the 29th. I wasn't planning to fly cross-country, but my mother sent me a plane ticket and asked me to come for a very special reason.

It turned out to be my 94-year-old grandmother's last Christmas, and it meant so much to me to have one last opportunity to spend some time with the best person I ever knew in my life.

Two months later I was flying east again, this time for her funeral.

There's no great point to this, other than the easy one. Let the people you love know exactly how you feel about them this Christmas. It may mean more to them in the short run, but in the end, it's the greatest gift you can give yourself.

Merry Christmas to all my old -- and new -- friends from the Class of 1967. To Dale, Gail, Nan and all the rest of you, I wish I had known you better then, but I'm glad I'm getting to know all of you now.