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COULD WE HAVE A DRUM roll, please...I put every last ornament on the tree and had a fine time doing it! I even piled up all the plastic bins used to store the various decorations and put them...uh...on their way back to the attic from whence they came.

It's tempting to bask just a tiny bit. Yes, it is.

However, as I'm so prone to do... in accomplishing one task, I flounder around (very easy to do in my attic) and stumble upon (literally, in this case) a mother lode of unpleasant work. It was that pesky construction of empty cardboard boxes in the attic stairwell, and similar edifices residing amid the old baby buggy, boxes of dishes, bags of old stuffed animals, boxes of books, old record player (is there any other kind?), and endless boxes filled with the gleanings from You-must-clean-up-your-room-now! adolescent bedroom floors. (Yes, I must confess, I had at least one child whose response was to simply cull items needed for daily living and consign everything else to a box destined for the far reaches of the attic. Everything else. Gum wrappers. Old homework papers. Pencil stubs. Leaky pens. Paperback books. Rolls of tape, gluesticks, scraps of material...I had crafty children). Okay, you get the idea.

Suffice it to say, I had (oh, lovely past tense) an attic landscape littered with both empty and full boxes.

Seeing as how it is easier to deal with an empty box than a full one, and having a sudden epiphany that I am never going to bemoan the fact that--alas--I let go of the perfect empty box just before I could call it into play,

I set out on a rampage to rid the upper regions of all such riffraff. Which was all well and good, and took a surprisingly brief amount of time. I piled boxes within boxes and, though the multiple trips down the stairs were a bit precarious, managed to transport all stacks down two flights to the kitchen.


Where my moment of euphoria lasted just long enough for me to ask myself exactly how--in an ecologically friendly way, of course--I'm going to quickly dispense with these stacks. I know, I know...it's not simple, and it's not quick. I'm dragging my feet already at the thought of tearing them all down to flatness and taking to the recycling center...0pen only on first and third Saturdays of the month until noon (often remembered...arrgh...with a jolt at 12:10 p.m.)

So there you have it...for the time being, my basking must give way to busting up.

On the bright side, my attic seems more spacious. Next year perhaps it won't be a where's-waldo operation finding those Christmas decorations!


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IN LITTLE SNATCHES of time, I continue to devote myself to the job of Christmas Elf...



...Chief Engineer,

Decorating Division.



On Donder, on Comet, on Cupid...!

...

I'M MAKING SOME progress! Visions of sugar-plums are dancing through my head.
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WE'RE ALREADY WELL into the month of December. It's the time of year when my brain starts telling me a story. I know that it's just a story, but I'm gullible. Here's the gist of it:

This year you (that would be me) are going to get started early on preparations for the holidays. Really, there's not all that much to be done...and you're going to really concentrate this year and not get side-tracked on some project or other (hmm...I don't know...maybe a blog or something weird like that.)

Take the Christmas cards, for starters. This year you've got leftover cards, so you can eliminate one whole step. You've been working on a list with all the names and the addresses and who got sent which cards what years and all of that truly unnecessary minutiae. Surely you can toss that extra work out the window and simply page through your address book, eliminating anyone who would tear open the card and wrack a brain over your identity. After that... sign them. Yes, just...sign them. And plaster on the stamps. Alright, that's done. Have a cookie (might as well make it a home-baked Christmas one that you just pulled from the oven! That's right. You're going to have sooo much extra time this year to do baking. )

Now for the decorations. It won't involve much to drag those boxes of decorations down from the attic. This year you can clear the attic steps before descending with a load, and you won't send that tower of empty boxes that you've stored in the stairwell for easy retrieval cascading down the steps ahead of you, forcing you to go backward up the steps with your armload and try again. Decorating's not so complicated or time-consuming. It's basically just sitting or hanging things around, right? It'll be a breeze! (Little doubts are beginning to niggle.)

Then there's the tree. You know the tree's been a pretty big job, but that was in the past. You've got it all down pat by now. You're going to get it done in a jiff...the going and chopping at the tree farm, the setting up, the light-stringing, the ornaments, the re-doing of everything when the tree topples over and graces the floor with water and broken ornaments. Oh, wait a sec, not that last part. This year you're going to anchor that tree with an ounce of prevention and a bit of wire. This year, smooth and easy.

What's left? Ah, yes, cleaning. Of course you want the whole house thoroughly cleaned before you begin any preparations...but not to worry...

Just hop to it! You can get the whole house cleaned in short order. You're going to zip through the clutter. You're going to be fast and yet thorough, using some of those housecleaning tips they're always putting in men's magazines...(haha! I'm cracking myself up.) You're going to be amazed at the sparkle and shine!

Best of all, you're going to have time, oh lots of time to put your feet up and bask......except that's where it all unravels. I know it's just a fairy tale.

And yet...sigh...such a lovely story!

It's become a Christmas tradition.

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SO YOU KNOW that I took off on a trip somewhere to be with family on Thanksgiving Day. And you know it was out of state. Just in case you do not know this bit of skyline, include the fact that it's down there below the Mason-Dixon line...yep, this city was definitely a part of the Old South. Hey, it even got burnt to the ground during the Civil War.

Need more?
The James River runs right through this state capitol.
The state was one of the original thirteen colonies.

Okay...this clue should give it away: It was the Confederate capitol during the Civil War.

Now you know, don't you, that Richmond, Virginia, is where I spent my Thanksgiving holiday. Whew. I wouldn't want to think you forgot everything you learned in American history class!

My son, his wife, and Nora the cat live there, and they cooked and cleaned and hosted quite generously (well, Nora didn't do any cooking or cleaning, but she graciously put up with the influx of the whole kit and caboodle).


The Feast of Thankfulness included all the turkey-trimmings food and three days of lovely togetherness and delightful game-playing and going about. I relished such things as...


The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, with its large collection of Faberge works (no photos allowed in that room)...


and enough paintings and sculptures of horses to keep one member of the family engrossed far longer than we'd anticipated!


Not just one, but two parks to keep us all happy and occupied...

...this one containing such treats as a small lake,

..lots of flora for me to rave about: just look at the inside of this enormous, spreading magnolia tree!

...and quite a bit of interesting fauna, as well!


Possibly just as well that I had only my camera-of-little-memory or I'd be simply inundating you...and we still have another park to go...

This one is an island in the James, where we have to traverse an ever-so-high and long pedestrian walkway (oh, gasp, my legs are melting and heart thumping, this better be worth it) which brings us to a trail that leads around the perimeter of the island.

We can walk out into the river...not the James I've known, but still charming in its shallow, rocky way.


And (oh, it was worth it!)... many old tumble-downs and historical remains.

This wall...what beauty in decay!


And another...



Moving along now...to a little stress-free shopping (it's Black Friday, but we're in shops, and there's no grabbing, no snatching, not even the faintest suggestion of a stampede).

Then some engaging architectural sights...and a camera too full to hold another byte!



Except this one more I've just got to have... of two new friends! Clara and Helen made me want to get out of bed early and trot down to the hotel breakfast room each morning so as not to miss their lively conversations. Turns out Clara's got a son in Richmond, too... (he's a rabbi at a synagogue near my son's apartment)... and a more animated and upbeat octogenarian I've never met. Would that I'd have this much joie de vivre, should I live to eighty-four! The same is true of Helen, though she's no octogenarian (Shhh...Helen doesn't know her sister told me... she's a decade older than Clara!)


We hope to meet again next year...when we'll all travel over at least one river, and perhaps through the woods (flying from Manhattan?), for another Richmond Thanksgiving.

It was a first-rate day... a definitely first-rate stay!




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