My regular days off from the job (Tue, Wed, Thu) matched up with the big 12-25 celebration this year so I found an empty seat on a bird to Chicago on the evening of the Eve and did the holiday with my family.

I’m usually content to lay low here in NYC while the masses flip lids and scramble ruthlessly in advance of a religious holiday that can quickly go from Fah-la-lah into Humbug if you take it too seriously. The travel component alone can suck the fun out of this time of year and there’s a weird pressure dynamic as it relates to the gifting frenzy. Even if you boycott, people send you stuff. Sometimes you stay on somebody’s list for years regardless of whether you reciprocate. I prefer Thanksgiving. And Opening Day.

The snow was a nice touch while in Chicago. It was really coming down Christmas night as we left my youngest brother’s house in Glen Ellyn. He grilled beef tenderloin and had cold Old Style on ice. His tree would have fit in Big Sur.

I stayed at my other brother’s house in Park Ridge. The big gift over there was an indoor basketball game that allows up to two players to shoot miniature balls into hoops simultaneously. The game was packaged in a large, heavy box and included dozens of parts. It had not been fully assembled by the time I left early Thursday morning. “If it was easy to assemble, it would say ’Easy to Assemble” on the box,” said my brother Tim as we wondered how quickly we could try out the new toy.

The 5 AM departure Thursday from O’Hare to Newark was full of people looking to stuff gift bags in overhead compartments without space.

Back in New York, new mayor-to-be Bill de Blasio made a clumsy, unforced blunder by green-lighting the sneaky Christmas Eve release of a slickly-produced video detailing his daughter’s effort to quit the pothead/boozehound routine. It looks silly for de Blaz to try so hard to get out in front of a non-story. Kids can party in a bad way and quit and move on without their parents subjecting them to cheesy Harold Ickes damage control. Unless there’s something we don’t know about yet to come. But really, Bill, leave your kids out of it now and let ’em grow up without putting ’em in You Tube videos for release when the news cycle is in the waning moon stage. And while de Blaz is at it, he should not disqualify Lis Smith from his top flack job simply because she’s hanging out with Eliot Spitzer. The tabloids will tire of that story in no time if Smith simply shows up and does her job. One more thing about Big Bill he needs to learn quick: it’s not funny – nor is it an endearing quality to consistently show up an hour late for scheduled public appearances. Fix that. Don’t let the front page bother you and let your kids be kids.