A flicker is dining at my suet feeder. Compared to the birds I usually see, it is enormous as his body is the same length as the wire feeder. His back is to me so I can see the beautiful pattern of his feathers. I also see that a few of the smaller feeders need seeds so I’ll go out later and fill them. The gold finches and the chickadees especially love those smaller feeders. I haven’t seen many of the spawns of Satan of late. Perhaps they feel the vibes.

At 45° the day is winter warm. Gracie was out for a long while earlier this morning, a sure sign she finds the day agreeable. It’s now her morning nap time.

The den is a mess filled as it is with bags of gifts to be wrapped, tissue paper, assorted wrapping paper rolls and boxes with ribbons and tags. Only a few gifts are left upstairs to be brought down, but all the up and down the stairs yesterday took its toll so I left the larger, heavier boxes until today. I wrapped a few gifts last night, but today I’ll finish the bulk of them. I enjoy wrapping presents and making the ribbon just so, but for my sisters, I can’t add ribbon to the gifts as their cats are notorious ribbon eaters. Mine usually aren’t but this year Fern has given a few gifts a taste.

The houses are beautiful all lit up for Christmas. Many use colored lights on the fences and bushes but just as many use white ones. The candles in the windows are mostly white though I did see some red ones the other night. When I was a kid, orange was the color of choice for window lights. No houses had white lights anywhere. The outside lights were all colors and the strands had those huge bulbs you don’t see anymore. I have a couple of sets from long ago, but I don’t use them. I guess I keep them more for sentiment than anything else. They were beautiful and they were bright.

At dinner last week my sister noted that people really are nicer at Christmas. They tend to smile more for no apparent reasons. They are less impatient. They will even stop to admire a tree or a decoration. I agree with her and have a theory as to the reason. I believe all of us have pieces of our childhoods kept alive especially for this time of year when we welcome wonder and magic and let Christmas into our hearts.