As expected, full winter is here. Not much more to say about that till a blizzard comes. We’re overdue one, at least when it comes to my completely nonscientific feelings on the matter. Not that I want one, just that it’s been a while, and the Old Man might want to let us have it this year.

Christmas lights are up around the neighborhood and beyond. Have been, mostly since last week. So are ours, but I don’t light them. Soon. I haven’t even gotten around to replacing the white overhead front door light with a green bulb. Soon.

We visited the Elk Grove Village lights recently, which includes a glowing ball you can walk into.

How could I not open an email with a subject line like this?

SAVE at our annual Holiday Open House! Details inside

Easy not to open, actually, and usually I wouldn’t, but since I did know the sender — a dermatologist we’ve visited — I took a look:

Don’t miss our biggest savings of 2022 on skin treatment packages and in-clinic products at our Wheaton/Naperville location. Oh, what fun!

Oh, what fun? Like riding in a one-horse open sleigh?

Ridding the house of excess paper is an ongoing task. Digital age, my foot. Today I found a form letter, undated, from the Schleswig-Holstein Park District. The head:

PARENTAL GUIDELINES

Followed by a lot of verbiage, but I didn’t need to read any more. Those days are over. Out to the blue bin with it.

Before I tossed, in the same blue bin, one of those cardboard triangles that Toblerone comes in, I noticed that the brand is owned by Mondelēz International, complete with macron. Wait, isn’t that the name of the president of France? How is it that the Fifth Republic has a diacritical mark as its supreme magistrate?

Never mind. When did the essential Swiss triangle chocolate fall under the sway of Mondelēz? Back in 1990, when predecessor Kraft bought Toblerone. Shows you what I know. Then again, that would account for Toblerone’s wider appearance in North America since about 1990. Back in the 1980s, the chocolate wasn’t just Swiss made, that’s where you found most of it.

Despite its Euro-sounding name — Iberian-sounding — Mondelēz is actually headquartered in the far-off, exotic city of Chicago.