'Tis the season

By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor

Not long after we're off the air and en route home tonight after the broadcast, some of us will circle back and come to work tomorrow for a rare "Saturday session" for many of us on the weekday Nightly News team. Tim Russert and I are coming in to cover and report on the results from South Carolina and Nevada -- in what is turning into a fascinating, ultra-competitive (and exhausting) political year. First things first: tonight we'll cover the political state of play, as well as the state of the economy, and we'll have our Friday Making a Difference segment.

I also want to thank those of you who are launching the grassroots movement to buy me a personal jet. While I'd really miss those four-hour redeye flights from Las Vegas to Newark, I guess I'd get used to it in time. In fairness to my employers, you should know: we often have to arrange charter aircraft if the destinations and arrival and departure times don't lend themselves to commercial air travel. The case I always cite is Banda Aceh, Indonesia after the awful tsunami there in December, 2004. No commercial air travel was allowed to land or take off during the first two days of that crisis, so a charter jet was the only option we had. Somehow (and so far, at least) thanks to the hard work of a lot of people, we always get where we need to go.

Thanks for watching this past week. We have indeed covered a lot of ground and a lot of news in the space of just five days. We'll be back at work tomorrow night, then Lester Holt will take the reins on Sunday. I'll be home rooting for the Giants. We'll be back on Monday to start another week, which will include a Republican debate in Florida. Have a great weekend, and thanks for watching.