A Stroll on a "Christmas Eve Eve"

Or "Christmas Adam," as I understand it's called in some quarters...LOL. (How very apt, in fact, because December 24 is "Adam and Eve Day.")

Today I had a sleep in, then had a leisurely breakfast; so leisurely that I decided not to do what I was looking forward to this morning, but to postpone it to this afternoon so I wouldn't run into lunch-hour traffic.

So I finally got the last of the gifts wrapped—yes! Also tidied up, put the baking board away, tossed the trash, and vacuumed.

But the nicest part of the day was walking around downtown. I started at DuPre's, which was a department store until 1985 and is now an antique mall. It still has the original wide-board wooden floors, and if you go to the very rear of the store, there is a support post that still has nails stuck in it and papers posted on it from when the store was in business, like bills of sale and a list of prices for chicken and pigeon and other types of feed and a list of who was at what extension within the store. At Christmastime all these antique stores dot the sales floor with decorations, both vintage and new, so it's the best time to wander about.

I also walked to the antique store where Luke the poodle usually hangs out. This place has old Victrolas and today they had a 1960s television console I remember when it was new and being sold at the Outlet Company! They also have old Life and Popular Science/Popular Mechanics issues and some books.

I popped in the little toy/gift shop and the Hallmark store, then walked down to the smaller antique stores on Church Street. One wasn't open on Tuesdays. :-) I did wander about the one that was going out of business and moving into DuPre's (where I don't know, since I didn't see any empty space there!) and the other that sells primitive things. I bought a small primitive black sheep, although I was itching to buy more, and a small feather tree to boot!

Spent the evening chilling out. James wrapped my gifts, we had supper and watched Jeopardy and my favorite part of each evening, What's My Line? and To Tell the Truth, and finally a program I recorded off GPTV several weeks ago called Paperback Dreams, about the dwindling market for independent bookstores. Profiled were two northern California icons, Kepler's Books and Cody's Books. It brought back melancholy memories of Oxford Books at Peachtree Battle, and the old Paperback Books store on Weybosset Street in Providence. (And I wistfully wonder if Readmore is still hanging on out there on Route 44 in Taunton.)