19 Days Before Christmas

Work of one sort during the day, a short interruption for a doctor's appointment and getting the car inspected, and then it was to "work" I like better. In short order I had the library tree decorated and in its place. The library looks swell with the glider rocker. Right now you can sit in the rocker and read by the light of the Christmas tree.

After supper I ironed all the cover cloths: the holly cloth for the folding table, the glitter blue cloth for the plant table where the airplane tree would go, and the weathered gingham for under the woodland Santa and tree. I decorated the woodland tree and set up the rest of the woodland things, and then fluffed up the airplane tree and decorated that. This year I gave it a bit more thought and put the darker planes where they would be bathed in the white lights of the tree. The white, red and yellow marked airplanes don't need a light to make them bright!

And then it was upstairs to watch Martha Stewart make Christmas cookies. She made a Polish cookie that was almost indistinguishable from an Italian wandi.


Midnight and Jeremiah, Sterling North
If you have ever seen Disney's charming 1948 film So Dear to My Heart, about a country boy and his mischievous black lamb, you are familiar with this story, which is the source material. The black lamb brings Jeremiah love, companionship, and finally success. This is a lovely children's book about the pleasures of simple country life at the turn of the last century, with illustrations by well-known children's book artist Kurt Wiese. When a crisis strikes just as the Kincaids find happiness, it will take a Christmas miracle to make them whole.