#2 daughter has returned to her Midwestern fastness and I am going back to work today. My husband did go out and buy a car, so now we just have to figure out how to pay for it. The boys promised that they would clear up the house today if I would leave them alone about it yesterday. I put an official end to the feasting, and the guys will be finishing up all the remaining simple carbohydrates and saturated fats without me.

If you want to know in  amazing detail why you shouldn’t eat simple carbohydrates and saturated fats, this book by Roizen and Oz will clue you in. It will also remind you why you’re supposed to exercise every day. It surprises me that this book has been a best seller, because it is very heavy on things like graphic descriptions of the functioning of the liver, but it does clarify why three days of living largely on Buche de Noel and lolling around playing games has left me feeling a bit hung over.

The songs I like best for this spell between Christmas and New Year are those that commemorate the march of the Magi through Provence. If you click here, you can hear “The March of the Kings” being sung as a canon by a couple of guys. Their translation is not my favorite, but it is kind of cool anyway.

You do not recall any scriptures about the triumphal procession of the Three Kings through Southern France? Well, neither do I, but that did not keep the people from writing some very good songs about it. The songs agree that the three wise men traveled through Southern France with an enormous entourage including soldiers to guard the frankincense, and the people came (from Chartres and Montlehry in particular, but from all over) to see Christ, who was apparently born in France, or at least within comfortable walking distance.

I just love the idea of the camels trooping through Provence.

“The March of the Kings” is a great song, and has been recorded by Robert Shaw and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and all kinds of choral groups, if you would rather listen to it than sing it.

Work today for me, and maybe — since all the guys are still at leisure — I will come home to a tidy house.