Sunday, December 11/2022

 Christmas decorating time. Am actually a traditionalist - well, purist - and would personally put up decorations on Christmas Eve and take them down at Epiphany but, probably fortunately, J is a more open celebrator as well as being significantly less lazy so the place looks cheerful and a bit Christmassy. Also lucky that a few bits were preserved in the boxes, so we have our stained glass (well, technically stained plastic, but that’s probably contributed to its survival) Christmas tree as well as the little wooden people, veterans of many Christmases past.

Christmas music also providing fairly uninspiring background in supermarkets. Haven’t noticed anything as funny as a previous year’s Sinatra rendition of Let it Snow played on a warm sunny day. Street decorations are up, though, and there’s a tree in the hotel lobby. Shop windows used to have more Christmas themes than they seem to this year, frequently featuring a classic European Saint Nicholas, looking tall and episcopal in gold and ivory or gold and blue - nothing at all like the North American Santa Claus, whose jolly round appearance came primarily from Coca Cola advertisements.