Christmas is going to be modest this year.
So hard to grasp that we won't be visiting our family and friends.
This Christmas Bill and I will be staying in our bubble of two. (A friend sculpted this portrait of us thirty years ago. The resemblance remains uncanny.)
We love Christmas trees but for some reason we have never had one ourselves. But we do have a box of Christmas decorations.
Tradition dictates that they go on our over-wintering bay tree and our rosemary bush.
Later I filled our display shelves with some of our favourite Christmas books and cards and records.
This year we found a new place for our box of lights and our Christmas angel. We have had the lights for more than thirty years and have never taken them out of the box. We just pull out the cord, plug it in and the rows light up.
The angel was at the top of my parent's Christmas trees all through my childhood and teenage years. When I left home to go to the big city my mother gave it to me.
Early December at Santa's Workshop South finds Number One Elf William Kimber at his desk writing greetings on our newly printed Christmas cards.
Merry Christmas, everyone! Inside the greeting goes "Let's 'ZOOM' into 2021 in hopes of a better year!'
There are clementines. It must be Christmas.
We'll leave you with the skittish poodle we met a few days ago. Dressed to the nines but nowhere to go, just like the rest of us.
