The morning is lovely, a bit chilly but lovely nonetheless. I have already been out. I went to pick up my Christmas dinner. When I got there, a short couple of minutes down the road, I saw a huge line of masked people all the way down the building waiting for turns into the market. I couldn’t believe it. I was again not dressed for public viewing. Well, they had a plan for dinners and cars, and I was only the third car in line. I gave my name and within 5 minutes I had my dinner. It looks amazing. The NY sirloin is huge and rests on lobster risotto. Atop both of them is a bundle of grilled asparagus. Also, I have shrimp cocktail and a vegetable plate with a dip. My desert is something chocolate. That’s enough for me to know, chocolate. I also have cookies for long term dessert, delicious cookies from a friend, a whole plateful minus the two I ate yesterday.

Last night I invited my friends to A Christmas Carol in my newly created Zoom room. I wanted to play for them Silent Night on my uke; thus a carol, not carols, in the title. I can actually play Silent Night fairly well. I always give myself a B+. I played twice, the second one almost perfectly. I had Moe and Rod from Colorado and Jay and Clair from Chatham in my audience. My other sister and my friends Tony and Clare missed the concert so my sister is asking for a return engagement. I’ll surprise her tonight.

When I was a kid, this was the worst and the best day of the year. It was the worst because it was at least 48 hours long. It never got dark. I was willing to put on my new pajamas around three or four in the afternoon so I could turn in early. I always tried around 5 or 6 to convince my mother it was bedtime for me. She knew better. The Christmas tradition was to open one present each. We had no choice as to which presents. My mother handed us the wrapped packages which were always new pajamas. She never surprised us. I don’t even think Moe ripped a tiny hole in those packages. She knew already. The last thing before bed was we hung our stockings off the small bannister going upstairs. My stocking was at the top, a position I demanded being the oldest. The rest were also hung in age order.

Today was the best of days because the long wait was finally over. Santa was coming. All I had to do was fall asleep, and the time passed without me watching. I’d wake up to a stocking filled with wonderful surprises and the best gifts for me under the tree. Yup, today was the best of days.

Today is sunny and winter warm. Everything is quiet. My house is almost totally cleared of wrapping paper and gifts except for a box to my sister with a gift, a very neat gift, which came later than the rest. It is ready to mail. I need egg nog and I need bread so I guess I’ll go out later today.

I’ve watched three Christmas Carol movies but I’ve saved the best, my all time favorite, for Christmas Eve, the Alastair Sim version. The only versions I don’t watch are the cartoons, except for Mickey’s. That one I love.

My house is getting cleaned today just in time for Christmas. I’m tired of picking up clumps of fur that swirl and eddy in front of me when I walk.

Christmas is the time for a suspension of disbelief. Wonder and Christmas are wrapped together. I still smile at the houses covered in lights. I chuckle when I see dark houses and remember my mother. She always said, “They must be Jewish,” just as a matter of observation.

When I was a kid, this week would have been intolerably slow. We’d watch Christmas programs, but they didn’t make the waiting any easier. My mother usually saved the Great Sugar Cookie Frosting Day for closer to Christmas. She’d make frosting and divide it into colors, green and red, and leave the white alone. We needed the white for Santa. Frosting day was always a messy day. Everything got frosted including the kitchen table and spoons which lost their identities under the thick, clumpy red or green frosting which covered them. Less is more never entered into the decorating. The cookies were covered and heavy with frosting. With the ones I decorated, I tried to be less liberal with the frosting and more creative. I used toothpicks to drop dots of color onto my Christmas Trees. I gave Santa eyes. I was an artist.