It's beginning to look a lot like . . . oh, who am I kidding?

Ask me if I'm ready for Christmas.  Go ahead -- I dare ya.

I do have a Merry Christmas wreath, but this is only because the fabulous neighbor sent her Boy Scout son over to sell me one; she knows me and figured this would be the only way I would get one.  She was right.

Meanwhile, the sunny girl's Halloween hat looks great, stashed in the corner of my dining room, right where a Nativity should go. 

 

The autumnal garden flag got put out just before Thanksgiving, so I feel like I haven't gotten a full season's work out of it.  At this rate the Christmas flag will go out the day after Valentine's Day.

Here we gaze across a vista of laundry that needs folding, to the mantel where our stockings should be hung.  By the chimney.  With care.  But first I have to find them.  And put away the Easter bunny.

Note the lack of a Christmas tree.  It's looking bleak, y'all.

+++++

Today,  the Advent calendar shows us a book that my family has loved forever.  The Cranberry books tell about the small town adventures of a group of friends who live in Cranberry, Maine.  In Cranberry Christmas, the friends are worried that they will not be able to ice skate on Christmas Day -- one of their favorite traditions.  Thank goodness, Mr. Whiskers finds an unexpected way!  When the urchins were little we had all the Cranberry books, plus Old Black Witch -- a favorite from my own childhood, also written by the Devlins.