It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas, but Maybe not a Lot

At the Barnstable Christmas Stroll

It's clearly Christmas here. We have a tree of normal proportions, which makes it the biggest tree we have had for years. It's quite pretty but a little bare because we no longer have two huge collections of ornaments to choose from. Now we have only the very few we thought we wanted as keepsakes, given the fact that we have not had a proper tree in many years. Oh well, it will be fun to pick out some new ones. We did get some lights that look just like the big old fashioned bulbs but are modern ones inside. Very cute. Mitzi has only sampled a few branches. I put one gift under the tree to see what she would do. So far so good. She has never been around a Christmas tree and I don't want to assume too much good behavior.

One evening we went out to enjoy a Christmas Stroll in Barnstable Village. This happens in most of the Cape Cod towns. It consists of an evening or afternoon when local merchants supply snacks or drinks and people come out to listen to Christmas music and enjoy the offerings and decor. It's very nice, and encourages you to visit a lot of local businesses you may not otherwise enter. I sure saw several I will be back to visit and picked up a little gift for Shana.

Most of my holiday knitting

Everything is wrapped except a couple of emergency gifts which I will claim for my own if they are not needed. Out of town gifts are on their way to their new homes and should be there Friday - in plenty of time to go under the tree. I am more organized than usual, and somewhat less grouchy than is usual for me at this time of year. I am so organized that I am even knitting something for myself. This is something I seldom start before Christmas Day - usually early in the day I am debating how safe it may be to wrap damp hand knit items. Apparently having some knitting time during the day results in large amount of knitting getting done.

We are having snow today on top of a week of cold weather. What this has meant for me today is that while zipping out to check the mailbox and pick up my papers I fell on a frozen puddle in the driveway, giving myself a painful cut on the palm of my hand (plus a bruise on the heel of the hand). I am hoping the cut will exempt me from taking the trash out tonight at then end of my shift at A Major Retailer. Not much hope, but some. I have also set my knitting down for the day because my hand is really sore. I suppose I am lucky not to have more injuries because my feet both flew out from under me and I dropped like a rock onto my butt. I'm feeling a bit jolted, but nothing worse than that. All the weight bearing exercise I do in the course of the week is apparently protecting me from injury, although it has done nothing for my crummy sense of balance.