This morning has been busy. I went to Hyannis for a medical procedure then did a bit of shopping then went to the clinic. I am now in my cozies. Happy me!

The day was dark with ominous clouds when I left. It was spitting rain as my mother would have said. Many trees still had dead leaves on the lower branches. Their upper branches were bare silhouettes against the sky. As I was driving home, I got to thinking about the feeling of the day. It is a perfect start for a fairy tale, a grim one with witches and gnomes who live in the dark forest. Proceed with caution.

A bit ago the sun made an attempt to emerge from the clouds. The sky got brighter but the sun stayed behind, and that’s where the weather stands now. It is warmish at 45°, but there is a wind advisory. I don’t care. I’m staying inside warm and happy. I’ll continue decorating, and I have a couple of crafts I want to do. I also have a gingerbread house needing construction.

My house is beginning to look a bit like Christmas. I brought up my pine cone tree from the cellar and intertwined lights and a pine swag across the mantel. I hung the Christmas cards on twine with small clothespins just as my mother had done when we were young. I brought up the old nativity set. I haven’t placed it yet has it has to be where Nala can’t get it. Today I bought a few things at Rings including a couple of Christmas cards with a Cape theme; however, there is only one left. I did find pieces of the missing card.

When I was a kid, I loved everything Christmas. I loved decorating cookies and making ornaments. I read a Christmas Carol and watched the movie every single year. I followed along with the dialogue. Even now I still watch the movie and still follow along with the dialogue. Our tree had huge colored bulbs. They were beautiful. They also got really hot to the touch. We always had a real tree. Its aroma filled the living room. My sisters and I still get real trees. I can’t imagine having an artificial tree. Maybe when I’m old.

When I first looked out the den window, I was deluded by the sun and the blue sky I could see so when I went out for the papers, I gasped at the cold. We had a frost last night. The high today will be 39°. In whose world is 39° a high?

Joyous day! Skip, my factotum, is here. He is shutting down the deck right now then he’ll do the outside lights. He looks so cold I keep telling him to come in to get warm, but he says if he did, he’d never go out again. The dogs are staying out with him. They find him entertaining.

I’ll bring more decorations upstairs today. The few I brought up on Sunday have me wanting more. There are so many tubs of decorations downstairs I haven’t used many of those decorations in years, mostly the ones way back against the wall. I never get that far. I hope to this week. I’ll expect to be surprised by what I’ve forgotten.

I remember sitting at the kitchen table stringing popcorn and cranberries. We ate the popcorn while we strung. My mother looped the strands around the tree, up high so the dog would eat the popcorn. Afterwards, she hang them outside for the birds. When I first bought my house, I had very little money. I did manage to buy a small tree, a very small tree. I made many of the decorations with apples and oranges. I even made my own wreath. I thought the tree looked amazing.

When I was a kid, our tree had bubble lights. I remember my brother and I would sit and watch those lights to see who could find the first one bubbling. I still have that set, but I am bit afraid to plug it in. The set has to be around 70 years old. Luckily, though, I have a new set of bubble lights, and I still sit and watch for the first bubbler.

Christmas delights my senses. The aroma of the pine tree fills the house. I love coming down stairs in the morning and smelling the tree as I get closer to the living room. The outside lights are so beautiful I sometimes drive by my house a few times on sort of a tiny light ride to ooh and aah. I love Christmas cookies and breads. My uncle used to make anise cookies, my all time favorite Christmas cookie. He used to bring a few to my mother’s house just for me. I didn’t share. I play Christmas carols in the car and in the house and sing along. I never object to Christmas carols after Thanksgiving. They have too short a season to wait.

I have a list. I need apples, oranges and cinnamon sticks. I have a holly tree with plenty of branches for cutting. I’m going to make a swag for my tree. Let the festivities begin!

Winter has reared its ugly head. It is cold and rainy and only 37°. The constant wind makes it feel even colder. Nothing about the day is inviting. I’d love to stay home, but I have PT so I have no choice but to brave the elements.

Yesterday I did laundry, two loads of laundry. I felt accomplished. To add to that sense of accomplishment, I even brought up a few Christmas decorations. Today I’ll add more Christmas. It is time.

The house where I lived the longest was small. Upstairs were three bedrooms, the linen closet and a bathroom. I shared my bedroom with my sister. The radiator was on the wall at the foot of my bed. I loved to listen to it gurgle and steam. I used to sit beside it to get warm in the small space between the radiator and the bed. The bathroom had a tub but no shower. The living room downstairs was the biggest room. It was the room where we spent most of our time. The TV was there near the side wall. A desk was on the wall near the front door. I remember when we had our pictures taken we sat on that desk. I am wearing a skirt and blouse. The blouse had a bow. My brother wore a jacket, and my sisters wore dresses. If I close my eyes, I can see the kitchen. It was small. Only four chairs fit at the table in the corner. The stove too was small. The sink was across from the door. The fridge was on the same wall. My father used to go crazy if we left a glass by the sink without washing it out or opened the fridge just to hunt. Our Woolworth’s turtle’s bowl was on the counter.

That house was one side of a duplex in a project of duplexes. It was the first house you saw when you drove up the hill. It was on the corner and looked tall. The front lawn was a grassy hill. At the bottom of the hill was a streetlight and a mailbox. I used to watch out the picture window when we had snow. Every flake glistened under under the streetlight. It was almost magical.

Today will be a strange weather day. Both rain and snow showers are predicted. It is still cold, only 38°. Everything is wet from the rain during the night. The kitchen floor from the backdoor to the hall is covered in muddy paw prints.

I tend to get discouraged about my finger. It still doesn’t bend all that much. I work it at home and at PT, but it stays stiff and is often swollen. I try to use it a much as I can, but I’m limited so that doesn’t seem to help much. When I mention being discouraged, my therapist reminds me it was a horrific injury. It is the area of the fractures which is the most trouble.

Yesterday I filled my dance card with all of this week’s appointments and events. I haven’t a free day. I have three related to medical and four uke events. I long for my sloth days, for naps in the afternoon and for wearing cozies all day.

When I was a kid, the mailman came twice a day during Christmas time so he could deliver all the cards. We loved opening those cards, especially the few addressed to us kids. I remember my Aunt Barbara used to send each of us Santa cards. We’d put those cards in the middle of the tree to hide the bare spots. The rest of the cards we used to hang on a string which stretched across the living room wall. My mother always kept track of the cards she’d sent and the cards she’d received in her green metal Christmas card box filled with index cards.

My mother suffered from the Christmas bug and we, my sisters and I, caught it. Everything in our houses is decorated. We still buy live trees. Our yards are lit. My brother-in-law climbs a tree to hang his Santa and reindeer. All his neighbors look forward to Santa. I use colored bulbs out front and white bulbs, which are lit every night of the year, on the gate and fence and at the other end of the deck. I have a wreath on the small gate and front door.

This year I am very behind with wrapping presents and putting up decorations and the rest of the lights. It is that finger again. My factotum didn’t get back to me so I’ll do what I can, slowly do what I can. I hate slowly.

Today is cold, raw and damp. The sky is cloudy. Rain and snow are predicted. The temperature is only in the 30’s and will stay there most of the day. Nothing about today’s weather is inviting though every now and then a bit of blue breaks through, a false hope. I’m staying home. I’m going to start decorating, and tomorrow will be tree day. I’m even decorative. I’m wearing a new pair of flannel pants. They are blue and decorated with Santa and his sleigh, fir trees covered in snow, bright stars and red cottages with snowmen in front with top hats and carrots noses.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite Christmas traditions was decorating sugar cookies. I can’t imagine Christmas without sugar cookies. My mother had cookie cutters in the shapes of Santa, a tree, a bell, an angel and a reindeer. The reindeer was the most difficult to cut out and bake as his antlers sometimes broke. My mother would make frosting, put it in bowls then color it. The kitchen table always ended up with globs of frosting in a rainbow of colors. My mother also put jars of sprinkles in green and red and multicolored jimmies on the table. They made the cookies prettier, but they added to the mess, to the globs on the table, but it didn’t matter. The mess was part of the tradition. We always rewarded ourselves with a cookie or two.

I’m watching Christmas movies just about every day. When I was a kid, there weren’t that many choices. I loved Suzie Snowflake, a bit of animation with a song. We watched the New Hampshire Santa every afternoon. I remember a Rudolph cartoon. It was in black and white so no red nose, but we imagined it was there. I remember Frosty. He had a tall skinny top hat, and he carried a broom. We watched the Perry Como show. He wore great christmas sweaters and always sang Ave Maria. I remember watching a Christmas Carol every Christmas. It is still one of my traditions. I have seen it so many times I know much of the dialogue. Last night I watched the transformation of George C. Scott as Scrooge. It is one of the best. Maybe tonight I’ll watch the Muppets. I’m ready for a bit of Christmas whimsy.

The morning is windy and chilly, only in the low 40’s. I wore my thick blue sweater with snowflakes across the middle. It was a perfect choice. I was toasty warm. I went down cape to Orleans for PT. The highway, the mid-cape, as you go down cape has only a single lane on each side. Where I hit the highway has a double lane so I sped hoping to pass the white truck I could see before the second lane disappeared. I didn’t. That truck drove me crazy. The speed limit is 55. I usually go faster. The truck went slower. There was a line of cars behind us. The truck was the Pied Piper, and we were the rats following it out of town. Later, further down the road with even more cars behind us, I decided we were lemmings.

My dance card has never been this full. I have been busy every day this week. Today, though, I’m finished early. My PT was at 9:45. I have a list. During the rest of the day I have plants to water, laundry to do, Christmas cards to address and decorations to bring up from the cellar. I’ll bring up my scrub pine tree which is always in the dining room. Lots to do!

When I was a kid, every tree we had was beautiful. Their lights were strands of huge bulbs which got hot, but which we touched anyway in a short of contest of who could hold on to the bulb the longest. The large glass ornaments always went on the top branches. My mother put those on the tree. We put on the smaller glass ornaments, the Shiny Brights. Some had stripes, others had lines from Christmas carols and a forest or a chapel in the background, but most were just colored balls: blue, green, silver, gold and red. We had some wooden ornaments, and we used to put Christmas cards in the center of the tree to cover the bare spots. The paper Santa had a coke. My mother strung the silver tinsel around the tree. The last were the icicles made of lead and perfect weapons if rolled into balls. They hurt and made little red marks. My mother always yelled.

Once the tree was finished, I’d sit on the couch and admire it. Sometimes I’d lie underneath it and look up into the branches bright with color. I felt surrounded by Christmas. It was the best feeling of all.

Yesterday it rained most of the day. The rain was loud and heavy and hammered the roof and windows. The dogs chose to stay inside and wait it out until late in the afternoon when the rain lessened. Henry barely made it down the stairs. Nala ran into the backyard. I think I heard sighs of relief. Today is beautiful. It is 50° and sunny.

The other day I watched a couple of Christmas Carol films. I started chronologically with the oldest films I could find. I watched the 1935 film with Seymour Hicks and the 1938 film with Reginald Owen. I’ll work my way up to more recent films. I have a couple of favorites, the Alastair Sims and the Patrick Stewart versions.

Years ago, my mother, my sister and I went to Boston’s Wang theater to watch the play of A Christmas Carol. The tickets were a Christmas present from me, and I sprang for great seats. We were thoroughly enjoying the play. We were toward the end after Scrooge had been transformed and was about to announce he was as giddy as a schoolboy when the fire alarm sounded. At first people just looked around then it was announced we had to leave the theater. We were by an exit so we were out in only a couple of minutes. We stood outside. The people with the balcony seats took a long time to exit. They had to walk down sets of metal fire escape stairs before hitting the ground. There was no fire and no smoke. We never saw the ending of the play, the best part.

My sister in Colorado and her family came out for Christmas one year. My mother got tickets to A Christmas Carol at the North Shore Theater. We had gone to see it a few years earlier, and the costumes and effects were amazing, but I chose not to go; instead, I went with my brother-in-law and two nephews to see the Celtics. It was their last game on the parquet floor in the old Garden. We were allowed on the floor to take pictures. We stood by the mascot, Lucky the Leprechaun, in the middle of the court and took several. The Celts won. After the game, we went to the North End for dinner. It was a wonderful day.

When I was a kid, we often went to Boston at Christmas. We walked all around the Common where the trees were covered in lights. There were pens with reindeer, and people skating on Frog Pond. My father once bought roasted chestnuts from a cart for us to taste. I thought they were gross. We’d walk to the department stores, a couple of blocks over, to see their windows. I remember being awed, open-mouthed, at all the animation. Christmas in Boston is always one my of my favorite Christmas memories.

Today is a drab day filled with clouds, maybe practice for tomorrow’s rain. It is warm at 52°. The dogs have been out most of the morning. They wander the yard. They run and chase each other. They come back inside panting.

This is a busy day for me, but I have it all planned in my head. First thing was my shower, check. Next, I have to buy some dog food and Jack’s favorite treats. I also need to hit the ATM. I have a late PT appointment after which I have to hurry home to get ready for my uke holiday dinner tonight in Hyannis. Between one and the other is 45 minutes. It will be a scramble.

On one of my school vacations in Africa, I traveled through Burkina Faso, then Upper Volta, to Niger. We rode over the Kennedy Bridge to cross the Niger River into Niamey. The bridge had just been opened. I remember that trip for several reasons. The first was my friends and I became separated at the border after our transportation from Upper Volta had died. We got separate rides into the city. I couldn’t find them so I found a hotel of sorts and rented a room. The hotel was a brothel. I didn’t sleep all night because of the noise of men talking and tromping up and down the halls and occasionally knocking on my door. At first light, I fled. When I was wandering, two small boys asked me if I wanted Peace Corps. That wasn’t surprising. It was the same in Ghana. Young white people were mostly Peace Corps. They led me to the hostel where my friends were staying. I was thrilled to find them again.

The next event was my never to be forgotten camel ride into the desert. The camel took off. I held on to the one strap for dear life. I nearly fell off, but the beast stopped just before I did. It was scary and exciting all in one. I stayed on the camel to finish my ride.

The biggest event was I caught cholera, but I had already had two shots which helped mitigate the symptoms though not enough. I still needed to camp out in the bathroom. The Peace Corps doctor came to visit and gave me medicine and a shot. Within a couple of days I could travel again so we booked a flight to Ougadougou.

After we landed, passport control didn’t want to let me into the country. I had no visa. I never got a visa to Upper Volta though I went quite a few times to Ouga. The border police just beyond Ghana used to let me in and would write in my passport I was staying just for the weekend. My friend who spoke French convinced them to let me in. It was so late at night we each grabbed a bench and fell asleep at the airport. When we woke up, the cleaning men were standing and holding their brooms. They hadn’t cleaned. They didn’t wanted to disturb us.

This morning is frosty. My car windows are covered in rime. The icy leaves on the ground make a crinkling sound when the dogs run in the backyard. Their fur is cold when they come back inside the house. It is a winter morning.

Today I have an empty dance card, but it is filled for the rest of the week. I’m missing my sloth days, the days of staying in my cozies, taking an afternoon naps and watching Hallmark Christmas movies even though I know all the plots.

Nala doesn’t just bring the inside out. She is now bringing the outside in. Just a bit ago she dragged pine branches through the dog door. Leaves, still attached to those branches, were all over the living room floor. She doesn’t just strew the leaves. She also chews the branches. Small bits of wet, chewed bark are on the hall rug. Nala is a pip.

My father used to say, “He’s a good egg.” That was quite the compliment. My sister says it every now and then as a homage to my father. That always makes me smile. When I’d visit my parents and sleep late, my mother used to say, “You must have needed it.” We still say that with my mother in mind. So much stays with us.

Of all holidays, it is Christmas which carries the most memories. We keep family traditions and add some of our own. The trees of my childhood were decorated with the same ornaments each year. Some of those are on my Christmas tree. My mother even sent a few to Ghana. They were my connections to home on my first Christmas ever spent away from home. They were on the small tree in my house, also sent by my mother, and on the school’s Christmas tree in the dining hall during the Christmas assembly. I have a picture of that tree with a gingerbread man hanging off a branch. The last time I had seen that gingerbread man was on the family tree in the corner of my parents’ living room.

It is time to get my tree, to fill my house with Christmas.

Today is another pretty day, a pretty December day, chilly and a bit windy. Leaves cover my lawn and deck though each has been cleared once. When the dogs are out running through the backyard, I can hear crunching sounds from the dead leaves covering the ground. Those leaves are never cleared. The backyard belongs to the dogs.

When I was a kid, this was the in-between season when some days were too hot for a winter coat while other days were so cold it was winter ensemble time, time to dress in layers. My mother was cautious. She’d bring out the winter coats, hats and mittens, it being December after all. I never enjoyed the layers, the bundling. Even now I seldom wear my winter jacket.

My mother used to take us into Boston to see Santa, but once, when I was really young, he came to our apartment in South Boston. I was probably around three or four. I have a picture of me with Santa somewhere in the house, probably tucked away for safety. My brother, a year younger than I, was too afraid to leave the bedroom. I’m wearing a dress, my patent leather Mary Jane’ shoes’s and lacy socks. It was an occasion after all.

I seem to be busy every weekday. I go down cape to Orleans for PT twice a week and on Friday I went to Hyannis for a doctor’s appointment. Uke is twice a week, practice and a lesson. I skipped the practice last week. I have to pick and choose. When I did both, my finger swelled. Yesterday I practiced. My finger didn’t swell.

My house isn’t yet Christmas, but decorating is on my to-do list for this week. That means hauling up boxes. I like to change the decorations from year to year. I have so many. I’m leaning toward vintage this year. I have many plastic light up pieces like Santa, candles and a snowman. They are from the 50’s and are a bit of wonder pulled from my memory drawers.