This morning is one of my favorite sort of mornings. When I let Henry out for the first time, I went on the deck. It is chilly, but the sort of chill which doesn’t hang around. I can feel a warmer day coming. I can feel the sun.

My wrapping began in earnest yesterday. I finished two adults and three children and managed to clutter two more rooms. Here in the den is wrapping central. On my table are my tools: scissors, a pen, heavy string and small pieces of wrapping leftover from the bigger presents and a tube of the paper of the moment. In the living room, the couch holds the wrapped present bags. The dining room has two tubs of wrapping paper and a couple of empty boxes to be filled for mailing. I hate clutter. I’ll work quickly.

I have outside stuff needing tending. A set of white lights on the side fence died, but I was fine with that until a second set died. Now I have to replace both. My bird feeders need filling, and I haven’t yet hung the horse’s head for the spawns. That will be first as spawns are notoriously impatient.

My scrub pine is up from the cellar. It needs to be pulled and fluffed. That’s the tree usually lighting a corner in the dining room, but this year it will be my only tree and will be in the living room. It is wonderfully ugly.

Henry is to my left on the couch. He is gnawing on his new bone which arrived from Chewy this morning. It is an actual bone, and Henry gets one every new Chewy order. I can see the marrow is already gone at one end. The wooden floor below where Henry gnaws has a peculiar pattern in the wood. It almost looks like a bird’s claw trail in the sand, but the marks are indentations from the end of Henry’s bone when it falls off the couch to the floor. Henry’s bone is a heavy bone. Jack is asleep on my other side. He leans against the arm of the couch and me. It is one of his favorite spots.

My car is dump ready so maybe I’ll go out later in the afternoon, but that’s a big maybe. I just don’t feel it today.

I am watching LlamaGeddon. The introduction was wonderful, a cartoon showing not only the llama’s flight from his home planet but also pretty much the whole plot of the movie. The llama has arrived on Earth in his animal trailer with wings. He has red eyes and is bent on death and destruction. This is labeled a comedy.

Yesterday morning was about as cold as it has been. My windshield was covered in frost. The dog’s outside water bowl had a thin layer of ice. We had snow flurries in the afternoon, and snow is still on the lawn and in the shade of the backyard, but the snow will melt today as it is already in the 40’s and will get near 50.

The morning is pretty. The sun is bright in a blue sky. An every now and then breeze blows the top branches of the pines. My wrapping odyssey begins today.

When I was a kid, I remember watching Santa Claus on a New Hampshire channel. He was on every afternoon. I remember Little Suzy Snowflake, a black and white cartoon. I can still sing her song, “Tap, tap, tapping at my windowpane to tell me she’s in town.” Watching A Christmas Carol has been a tradition for as long as I can remember. I read it first. One of my grandmother’s brothers had given me a book of Christmas stories, and A Christmas Carol was one of them. I loved the ghosts and Jacob Marley with his chains. Alastair Sim is my favorite Scrooge, but I’ll watch just about any Christmas Carol movie.

I admit I watch a few scary Santas now that I’m older. Krampus is my favorite. In the film, all the lights are out because of the snow storm. Sounds come from the chimney flue. A hook on a chain is lowered, and the lure is a gingerbread man cookie. One of the kids takes a bite, the chain circles him, and the kid is pulled screaming up the chimney. That is just the beginning of the horror.

One Christmas Eve my mother and I were still awake. We were chatting and having a drink or two and watching Christmas movies. That was the night we found Jack Frost, not the feel good Jack Frost the miracle snowman who comes back to play with his kid, but the serial killer Jack Frost who on his way to be executed is in a crash with a genetics truck. He is transformed by the genetic material into a killer snowman who goes through a murderous rampage in Snowmonton, the snowman capital of the world. My mother and I stayed up to watch the whole movie. It was dark and deadly but it was funny. If you are overloaded with the sweetness of Hallmark and the seldom changing plot of the prince faling in love with the commoner, just say Jack Frost and head on over to Prime or Tubi. You’ll know which movie to click.