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This brings my total to twelve... |
Welcome to the day after Christmas. This is Boxing Day in the various parts
of the British Isles, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. It's also the
Feast of Stephen (when good King Wenceslas looked out, etc.). |
Nancy and I went for a nice walk on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, something
like two and a half miles, partly for exercise and partly just to enjoy
fresh air and taking a walk together.
The photograph was taken on a pedestrian pathway that connects our neighborhood to the adjoining neighborhood. A week that brought a few hours just above freezing most days turned the paved portion of the path into uneven lumpy ice, leaving crunchy snow along both sides. (That's Nancy in silhouette ahead of me -- she's accustomed to me suddenly stopping to take a picture -- I let her get far enough along the path that she wouldn't complain that she didn't want me taking a picture of her.)
We went to the five-thirty service at her church, an 1883 vintage Episcopal Church in Wakefield village, came home for dinner, and then watched It's a Wonderful Life on TV. |
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Our tree had been up for days with just lights on it until we finally got
it fully decorated.
Yes, and got my little house on it. (When we were kids our collection of
family ornaments included two that looked like houses. Naturally my brother
and I had each claimed one of them as our personal ornament and every year
both of us would have to study the tree and select what we each thought
was the best vantage point for hanging our personal houses. Those houses
followed us when we went out into the world to have our own families.)
There's my little Christmas house on this year's tree. |
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St Nicholas
soon would be there...
Well, they had been hanging by the fireplace on Christmas Eve, but once
filled they would be too heavy, so Santa Claus had carefully placed the
filled stockings on the coffee table. |
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I had bought a catnip mouse for Tiger and Jill had bought him a three-pack
of catnip mice. She couldn't resist giving him one just a few minutes before
midnight on Christmas Eve.
Tiger had a very good time with it -- chasing it, pouncing on it, biting
it, holding it in his paws and licking it, etc. The little wrapped present
sticking out of the top of his stocking was another catnip mouse which
he enjoyed playing with on Christmas morning. |
| We have decided that Tiger enjoys Christmas. Okay, so he doesn't write
letters to Santa Claus, but he appears to like the Christmas tree. He's
pretty good about not attacking ornaments (we learned long ago not to hang
particularly fragile or attractive ones on the lower branches and Tiger,
at age 14, has outgrown the boisterous behavior of a kitten). He does seem
to find it interesting, an interesting change in the living room, something
to sniff at and look at and walk around. And he loves getting cat toys
and cat treats and having his human staff gathered together and sitting
on the floor. |
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