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If a home is a house, I've changed homes eight times so far -- nine, if you count the camper in which I lived with my brother, Kevin for a few months -- in four different cities, but all in the state of Wisconsin.

Each move also meant that friends and family would have to be notified of the change of address -- and I'm not the only one moving around, of course. Now there's email and internet home pages; these, too, are subject to change for a number of reasons, and maintaining a current list is a constant challenge.

A side-benefit of Christmas cards is updating your address book from the return addresses. Julie and I even received one from my sister, Cindy, this year, which surprised the whole family; to wit, Mom and Dad, from oldest to youngest: Lisa, me, Cynthia (Cindy), Kevin and Robert (Bob). All of us made it home for Christmas this year; Lisa, with her two children, Brian and Kristen, and their dog, Shadow; me with Julie; Cindy, with her husband, Ralph and their children, Jimmy and Dana; Kevin is still a bachelor; and Bob came with his wife, Katy and their dog, Jackson. For the second year now, home for us has been a garage on a hill in Phelps, Wisconsin. Dad is still hard at work on the new house and just this morning Bob was helping him hang wallboard. Mom is hoping that he'll have the house completed and ready for showing by September, so they can combine the house-warming with the celebration of their fortieth wedding anniversary.

Tomorrow, I and Julie will be spending the evening with her family (I'll spare you the roll call). They all live here in Wausau, which I have called home for the last eighteen years. And, while my geographical address is still subject to future change, and while the internet and computers change at a breakneck pace, I have completed the move to my new -- and, hopefully, permanent -- virtual home. As a Christmas gift, Julie paid for the registration of the domain name, roggeman.com so my email address is now greg@roggeman.com and my home page is now at www.roggeman.com; and, barring a complete overhaul of the internet, neither should ever change again.

Christmas for me has always been a time for family to get together, enjoy a good meal, have a few drinks and catch up on each others lives -- and remind each other of things we'd rather forget. When I was growing up, it was the time spent bonding with cousins and learning of past exploits of my elders. Now, it's passing on the family secrets to nieces and nephews, exposing old secrets and discussing some "theories" as to what exactly happened to that camper Kevin and I lived in until it was gutted by fire. Some day I may write my version of the events surrounding that conflagration but, despite Bob's theories, I'm holding my tongue for now.

And, like Bob, I think I've said enough. So, until next year . . . Merry Christmas!