For the first time in two decades, Congress has gone into November without clearing a single regular annual appropriations bill. That’s just another way of noting that things don’t look good at all for lawmakers hoping to leave Washington in plenty of time for celebrating the holidays at home. Indeed, Democratic Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland already has alerted the House that there likely will be votes into the week of Dec. 10 — and perhaps beyond. The Senate is destined to do likewise. (At the start of the year, the new Democratic majority set Oct. 26 as the target House adjournment date; the Senate went with Nov. 16.)

It’s not that Congress hasn’t been doing things to suggest it’s trying. By the end of last week, the House had taken 1,033 roll call votes — more than any other year — and only 2005 has yielded a greater number of overall bills and resolutions introduced. Still, work volume is no guarantee of efficiency: This Congress is on track to enact the second-lowest number of public laws since 1995, the year of the government shutdown. Back then, Congress stayed in session right through the holidays, and the first session of the 104th Congress adjourned just a minute before the second session began on Jan. 3, 1996.

Since then the latest adjournment was the Thursday before a Sunday Christmas, two years ago. By the start of November that year, three of the regular spending bills had become law, an additional one was in conference — and none had been vetoed by President Bush, the fate that is almost certainly going to befall the first fiscal 2008 spending package that gets to the White House.