Nothing too heavy for Christmas Eve. It’s sort of like a mandatory break from bitching.

I am proud to say, however, that this year I finally got into the spirit and put up a negativity scene in our front yard. ‘Tis the season ya know!

Encouraging job data sent stocks up to 2009 highs in a shortened holiday session on Wall Street:

New claims for unemployment benefits fell 28,000 to 452,000 last week, the Labor Department reported, the latest sign of improvement in the job market. It was the best figure since September 2008, just before the credit crisis peaked, and better than the 470,000 new claims economists had predicted.

In other tidbits today:

• Stocks pushed higher in December amid “optimism” about the economy
• Orders for durable goods (excluding transportation sector) jumped two percent last month, double what analysts had predicted
• Even with the east coast slammed by recent storms holiday spending appears to be up from last year
• The Senate pased the health care reform bill this morning, voting along party lines – 60-39 – in the first Christmas Eve vote since 1895.

There will be a lot of jabber-jawin’ in the lead-up to New Year’s Eve regarding the “end of a decade.” Whoop-dee-do. For me it was decidedly the worst decade of my life. But I’ve often heard it said that every cloud has a silver lining. If so, for me Mrs. Abyss must be that lining. If this decade hadn’t unfolded the way it did I would never have met her.

If we’re going to insist on the humorous human tradition of measuring time and celebrating integer values, I will grudgingly look to the future in an attempt to put this decade behind me. The beauty of being at the bottom of the barrel is that you can only go up.

The end of 2009 also marks a year where the so-called “bystander effect” got a lot of attention, and deservedly so. In Oct. a 15-year-old woman was gang raped for two hours while as many as 15 to 20 people watched or took part. We need a law that makes every bystander 100 percent guilty of the crime they are watching if they do nothing to stop it.

Yes, 2009 can kiss my ass as well.

For today, however, it is time for celebrations, especially the fact that I don’t have to work in the shithole for four glorious days. Hallelujah!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!