Before I took the great leap of faith into retirement, I used to love this time of year.  Not that I’m that much of a holiday guy, but things sort of progressively slowed down as the end of the year approached and people were generally just a little nicer.  So, it was a time to get caught up a bit and to work under a little less pressure than usual. Plus, with all the people out of the building on vacation, lunch lines in the cafeteria were shorter.