This will not be your granddaddy's December.

Unless your granddaddy was Huey Long. Or Mike Hubbard.

Forget ladies dancin' and maids-a-milkin', for now. Because these days of Christmas are gonna be packed full of politics, which you know about, and perhaps a few indictments, which you don't.

But somebody, chances are, is gonna need bail money for Christmas.

The special grand jury empaneled by the Alabama Attorney General's office is expected to act this month, according to some familiar with the case and the people who have been brought before the grand jury.

Let me say definitively that the only thing we know definitively is that we can't really know anything. Definitively.

The AG's office isn't talking and the grand jury process is secret. What we know we glean from those who have been seen coming and going as witnesses to the proceedings, and from those close to them.

But it's believed, among those who have reason to sweat, that prosecutors are working against a tight statute of limitations, meaning they must file certain charges by mid December or lose the chance to file them at all. Some close to the case initially believed the statute of limitations for some of the crimes would have expired in August, but came to believe they could be "stretched" because of ongoing criminal activity. But the statute can only be stretched so far.

So Merry Christmas.

This old JD Crowe number still seems to apply.

Who, if anyone, will be charged? Well, that's ultimately up to the grand jury, which is expected to reconvene in Birmingham next week. But it seems clear that some of them are expecting coal in their stocking this year.

The list of witnesses has grown long over the last 14 months. It included executive staff and members of the Birmingham Water Works Board, and some of their family members. It included representatives from the Water Board's multimillion dollar engineering firm, Arcadis (formerly known as Malcolm Pirnie), and some of the company's subcontractors. It included former Birmingham City Council members and current ones as well.

Being a witness, of course, does not imply that one is a target. But it's clear the investigation revolves around those people.

If crimes are found they are expected to involve money spent on politicians and their families - trips, food, maybe cash - to "corruptly influence" the operation of government, whether at the city or board level. There are questions of no-show jobs and rent payments.

But we - and by this I mean I - don't know if there are solid, provable, criminal answers to those questions. So this Christmas is filled with more anticipation than usual. Or dread, depending on whether you've been corruptly influenced. Or influencing.

All we really know is that something is about to happen, and it's not just a holiday wish.

This grand jury, lest you be confused in the blizzard of corruption, is not the federal body that investigated former Alabama Rep. Oliver Robinson and his alleged bribers at Balch & Bingham and Drummond Co. It is a state special investigative grand jury opened by a Jefferson County judge last fall at the request of the AG's corruption chief, Matt Hart.

The state grand jury has already charged Todd Henderson, who was elected Jefferson County district attorney but never took office, with perjury. He was convicted of that charge in October, and is to be sentenced in January.

When the investigation is expected to continue.

Happy New Year.

John Archibald's column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register and AL.com. Write him at jarchibald@al.com