Dear Readers,

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all (or equivalent if you celebrate something else, perhaps just a nice weekend) and thank you for reading my column over the past year. The North Tower is now 15 months old and I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you for all the wonderful feedback, it has kept a smile on my face many a rainy day. I also want to send a big thanks to Emerson and the staff at MuggleNet for letting me write for this website, to Rachael, my wonderful editor, and of course, to J.K. Rowling, without whose great writing we wouldn't even be here.

So this is my own little Christmas greeting to you all, as well as a demonstration of my very limited talents when it comes to working with pictures and computers (oh, faithful Paint :-)). I'm taking a little break to spend some time with my family and go skiing in France (and write a huge essay *sigh*) so I expect that the next article will be up by the end of January. Probably not what you want to hear, but I'd rather give you a realistic time frame than promise an article for next week and then disappoint you by not keeping my word.

So, stay tuned (more Snape to come :-)), eat too much food, sing some carols have a very happy Christmas.


Love,
Maline

PS. Yes, that's me in the picture. An old one from back in eleventh grade. I actually have hair down past my shoulders now. And the candles on my head is a lucia crown (Swedish tradition), the spiral-shaped thing to the right is a lussekatt (type of saffron bun thing, very yummy) and the red liquid in the glasses is Glögg (a sweet, spicy wine-based drink), in case you were wondering. ;-)

12/23/04