At Christmas this year my wife and I decided we'd take it easy. We knew the dining room table was on the horizon, probably a new bed soon too...we had toyed with a family iPad, but decided to put that off.

So small gifts it was.

We went with just little token gifts, nothing crazy - turns out we both went the coffee/mug route.

There was one other thing, though - we thought, maybe if we had an overnight sitter for the kids, we could get a hotel room in Boston, and have a night to ourselves.

And this weekend we cashed in.

So on Saturday we checked into the Park Plaza, and with no time constraints dictated by kids we caught a movie, had a child-free dinner, grabbed a couple of drinks at another place, and then ordered a room-service dessert.

It was pretty great.

As it turns out, it was exactly a year ago that my friends came in from out of town and we did almost exactly the same thing. (My wife and I skipped the BU hockey game and the fantasy baseball draft.) Read into that what you will.

We love everything about our kids, but it was good to take a night off. So good, in fact, that we think we'll do this again in the spring or summer when it will be a little more pleasant to walk around the city. And then we might turn it into an annual event.

Until then, we're back to being parents, somewhat recharged.

And I have a week's worth of New Things to fill you in on.