It was still grey and gloomy as Sunday dawned. After a leisurely breakfast, we took a quick trip to Kroger for my sandwich bread and bananas for the work week. $50 later... (LOL. We had coupons and they had paper towels on sale.)

When we got home we began the Christmas decorating! I placed the candles in all the windows and set up the timers (they're all on timers so I don't have to worry about them), and replaced all the autumn wreaths and swags on the doors with Christmas wreaths, and placed the garland—and the mistletoe (heh)—over the archway to the rooms and over the door to the deck (and put the bird garland on the deck door).

When I finished this, I decorated the porch...no lights yet, just the little tree with the blue lights, and the Santas in the big rockers. The garlands are badly faded by the strong sun that hits our porch in the afternoon. If I can find more blue garland somewhere I need to replace it. I also put out the little reindeer and candy cane and welcome bell stakes in the beds, and the plastic candy canes on the railing. Sadly, the latter are looking a bit worn. I also put up the Old-World Santa banner, the wreath on the front door, and the mailbox cover with the Christmas birds.

James also assembled the stool I bought, which is perfect for the little woodland tree and rustic Santa figure, and tested the little pre-lit silver tree he bought to showcase his Hallmark airplanes. The "needles" are holographic and the white lights will highlight the little planes perfectly. By the time we finished, it was 3:30 and we decided to go to Borders and have a treat: we had a BOGO beverage coupon for the cafè. When I was hanging the wreath on the front door, I noticed the sun had come out, and what a difference from the morning when we emerged from the garage! The clouds were scudding away and the sky was a brilliant blue.

I felt quite good as we reached the shopping center and went darting into Pier One looking at some beautiful glowing red lacquered trays before we went into Borders and settled down at one of the tables to drink our Cocoa Trios. They weren't scalding the way hot chocolate is usually served and I felt like we were a couple of kids at the malt shop sipping down our drinks.

Evidently my stomach has not settled down yet from Thanksgiving Day. Even the richness of the coca upset it, despite having eaten my oatmeal fine this morning and having taken my Prilosec. I came home with a sour taste in my throat and very hungry since I hadn't really had any lunch. James thawed the rest of our homemade turkey soup and we had it with elbow macaroni; a very mild dinner that just added to the sour taste. I had to swallow a couple of Gas-X tablets to get the bubbles to go away. It took until ten o'clock for it to fade.

In the meantime we watched several episodes of What's My Line?, including one in which Bennett Cerf acted as the moderator. One of the guests on that episode was Henry J. Kaiser. I piped up, "Hey, my dad had one of your cars!" And we belong to his HMO. :-)

Ended the evening and began the Christmas media season with our two favorite British stories, the "Silly, But It's Fun" episode of The Good Life (wherein Margo sends back the Ledbetters' entire Christmas provisioning since the tree is six and three quarters inches too short) and the All Creatures Great and Small story "Merry Gentlemen." I always marvel at the writers for this series. None of the stories that comprise "Merry Gentlemen" were originally Christmas stories in the Herriot books, yet they have become a seamless whole in the episode. I love this episode: it's like going home and being enfolded in warm arms. I especially love the cleaned-up dining room—the wallpaper and the wall sconces and the C6 lights on the Christmas tree and Helen standing in the dark with just the light of the tree on her face all remind me of my Papá's house at Christmastime.

And I love the churchbells at the end. I never hear churchbells any longer. If you do hear them, they are the tinny artificiality of automatic carillons. All sorts of noises out there these days, thumping cars and loudspeakers at car dealerships, and no room for the happy call of churchbells...

Labels: Christmas, decorating, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:51:00 PM

Comments:

I love that Good Life episode. I'd take it out and watch it but I packed all my Britcom DVDs separately and they're still taking up room in my father's storage shed.

# posted by  Ivan G Shreve Jr : 9:38:00 PM

 

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