I had a wonderful Christmas with family. That’s obviously the most important part of the holiday, but since that doesn’t translate well into a blog post, I’m going to brag about my gifts instead.

I wanted to show off a couple of gifts in particular, because they were handmade:

My father made CD cases like this one for me and my three siblings.

My sister-in-law in California knitted hats and scarves for several of us, tied in with one of that person’s favorite sports teams — in my case, you will note the exact colors of the Nashville Predators. I got a Predators collector pin to wear with this as well.

I also got some great clothes, and several great books — an autobiography of movie director Preston Sturges, a Food Network Kitchens cookbook and a book which I didn’t even know existed by Steve Martin about his days as a standup comic and variety performer, from Disneyland to “Saturday Night Live.”