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Christmas Diary

 I spent time in a Starbucks yesterday, and I noticed a "Christmas cookie latte" and a "gingerbread tea." And I'm all for this; you're not going to see, here, a trite complaint about how "Christmas starts too early."


The day after Halloween, I had Kirstin Chenoweth on the small screen, belting out "O Holy Night" with the Mormons in their big choir. I won't put the tree up this weekend, but I might put it up seven days later, on November 18. That would be a triumph of self-restraint.

I was raised on Christmas carols--I performed them in a little greenhouse, every year--so I'm proud to have "verse two" filed away, in many cases; I know about the Godhead veiled in flesh, the slave who is our brother. I'm especially fond of "Winter Wonderland," which actually isn't a Christmas song; I admire the two snowmen, igniting the sparks of two separate mini-stories, in two separate bridges.

In this particular house, the Christmas season is forever linked with new seasons of "The Crown"; it's such a pleasure to cuddle near the tree while the TV hatches various falsehoods about Diana, Princess of Wales. (This year is especially exciting because Judi Dench has outed herself as an enemy of Peter Morgan! Also, the real Tony Blair is now speaking up, in a critical way, almost as if from beyond the grave!)

Mostly, though, Christmas is an excuse to buy books: I have an eye on "The Nightingale," "Puss in Boots," and "One Morning in Maine," all intended as "gifts for the children."

Tis the season.....
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