Monday, November 30th, 2020

A beautiful full, silvery moon shining on me from the East, - it came up over the hills, through the clouds, and spread it's silvery light, setting them all aglow within a rusty-red ring.

Marvelous, - I see it through the window in my office, and in the very early morning it will be shining on me from the west, through the bedroom window.   The world is full of such glorious things..... I kept getting up last night to look for the moon, shadowed with its partial eclipse, but I was never successful....

The end of November, and it leaves me full of plans for December, - time to send someone shopping for gift bags and tissue and ribbon.  I wish I could go myself, but between the pandemic and no driver's license I have to rely on shopping lists and sweet and willing family members. But I do have a chest full of hand wovens that I am anxious to distribute, and then I can start again to store away next year's treasures from the loom.  I am so grateful for my looms and for full shelves of yarns, just itching to be turned into something handwoven.

Today I printed out my Christmas card list and tucked it in the box of cards my daughter bestowed on me.  What shall I do first, - Christmas cards and letters or shortbread?  Well, considering the pace that the postal service favours nowadays perhaps I had better write a newsy letter and get it on its way with love and good wishes. I find that if I make the shortbread and the mince tarts too early, even if they are stored in the freezer, somehow the stash gets smaller and smaller as Christmas gets nearer and nearer......

Sometimes I look at that Christmas card list with dismay, - there are so many dear and precious names crossed off it - no postal service in Heaven, to reach them, and only memories remain here on earth.  But I treasure those memories, - they remind me what a wonderfully rich life I have had, - full of loving friends and family, and the little Christmas tree I have tucked in a corner is a sweet miniature reminder of the great ceiling high firs we used to have, and the wonderful children surrounding it....

I was thinking the other day of some of the Christmases we had when I was growing up, and how happy and meaningful they were, despite the fact that they fell into the depression years of the Thirties.  We were content with so much less, and the oranges and the pieces of coal in the Christmas Stockings complemented each other.

When I was getting out the Christmas candles I was also thinking of Advent, and how, when the children were still at home, we had purple and rose candles at the dinner table on Sunday, and each child chose the name of another from a little box, the idea being that the person they chose would be the recipient of their 'loving attention' during the following days!!!

Nice traditions, and although they may not be followed now, in these days, still they are remembered.

That gorgeous moon is high in the sky now, - I have to peer upwards through the window to see it, and after a while it will be right overhead, keeping watch over us all by night!!!