We spent most of November vegetating at home as we braced the chilly weather and battled a stubborn cold that kept us coughing for weeks. We tried to warm up with new Well Season dim sum and Kotchen DIY hot pot, but was not impressed by either restaurant. We also evaded cooking for my lab holiday party and ordered out from Taqueria Guadelajara. Most of the students were studying for finals and couldn’t stay for our usual board gaming, but we did manage to make it up with another lab outing at the newly-renovated Mikuni the following week. At work, I was busy preparing graduate lectures, manuscript revisions, and a record of 10 upcoming talks in January. This freed me up for Thanksgiving to drive down to Stockton for home-cooked lunch with the in-laws. We returned to Vacaville for Black Friday shopping, where we were exhausted despite scoring just a few coats and sweaters, and filled on lumpia and lechon kawali from Ma Sarap before heading home. Heavy rain kept us indoors for the rest of the weekend, as we successfully revived the wind fish in Link’s Awakening and watched cute baby Yoda get rescued in The Mandalorian on the new Disney+ service. We set up our Christmas tree as in prior years, and also repurposed some old string lights from our previous pergola to decorate the front porch. Hopefully, we’ll recover from our cough soon to enjoy the holidays.