.  .  .   like Christmas at 1880.  Mother sent real bayberry candles.  They smell so good.

My neighbors brought over this lovely arrangement:

And I hung the ceremonial family wreath on the kitchen door.  I still love it, but I cannot actually remember what prompted me to buy a plastic wreath at the Flower Mart in SF about forty years ago.  It is the only fake thing I ever display.  And I always will.  You can look at previous December posts on this site to see how we always used to take pictures of daughters on the porch in their holiday finery pretending to hang this wreath on the front door.

I have always been conflicted about about the lies told to children regarding Santa Claus.  Especially the scary stuff about how if you were a bad little girl you wouldn’t get any thing. I was not an especially good little girl, but I always got wonderful things from him.  I remember very poor children in my grade school in Oklahoma who were told the truth, but I think they were told not to spoil it for us “rich” kids.  They just joked that they had been very bad and consequently got nothing.  It made me sad for them.

I put this up in my little guest bathroom just for fun.  It’s up high on the wall, so it shouldn’t scare little children.

I guess they best way to think about this lie is that it gives parents a way to give gifts to their children without taking credit for it.

And now I am about to dress up to go hear the Oregon Symphony play beautiful holiday music.  Christmas carol singing always plays a part at this concert.  People around here seem to know all the carols and sing heartily.  The Symphony’s programs always begin with a very hearty singing of our National Anthem.  This is an audience that knows one does not applaud after the National Anthem.  It’s not a baseball game, for heaven’s sake!