One tradition that I have always been a sucker for is the tree in Town Pond, of which the best part is seeing the village crew setting it out from their tippy aluminum rowboat.

My son and I have been down for the count with influenza and quickly reached the Very Boring Stage of convalescence. Bring on Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson in “Red One,” the Christmas-themed action movie.

First I hated driving the Cross Bronx Expressway. Then I discovered many other ways to hate it in “The Power Broker,” Robert Caro’s monumental biography of Robert Moses, the designer of it and so much else affecting our transportation lives.