December.... third week...

Celebrations and tragedy...... all in one week.

We celebrated my husband's birthday this week... going out to a special lunch with good friends in a restaurant adjacent to a gift shop that left no corner without a hint of Christmas.  The trees touched the ceiling, the ornaments were as big as grapefruits... feathers and tinsel and garland.... you name it, and it was on their trees.  Christmas music was playing, people were laughing and enjoying the gourmet menu, and it was just the perfect birthday-day. 

While we waited for our table, we looked at the holiday items in the gift shop.... beautiful things, but attached were downtown-Houston price tags, not suitable at all for this part of the Hill Country.  I didn't see too many shoppers with their arms filled with purchases.  My bet is that they will do what J and I decided to do..... have a look-see after Christmas is over and then buy what we like at sale prices.  The shop had a huge hand-made wood bird cage, complete with two doves (and a little baby dove perched in a nest)..... gorgeous little birds (turtle doves, maybe?).  Of course, that got me to missing my two little parakeets..... both of which are history now, I'm sure.  They wouldn't have survived the worst heat of the late summer and the cold snap we had last week.  I still see a squirrel out on the balcony from time to time, and I have to wonder if he's the same squirrel who opened up the bird cage so he could get the food inside.  And couldn't he have closed the little cage door when he was through eating?

Our Christmas party last weekend was a great success......... talking and laughing and visiting... everyone just enjoying one another's company over food and punch and hot cider and iced tea. Delicious desserts, good food, good company.... and our house filled with one big tree, and 26 table-top trees......... Christmas wherever you looked, starting at the back door and going right up the stairs to the second floor.  When the 3rd floor library is completed, I will have holiday decorations up there as well.  Christmas is Christmas, and you just can't get enough of it. There just always seems to be room for one more little tree and just one more Santa in this big old house.

Our Miss C graduated from college this weekend........ and now she's off on a celebration cruise with a few of her friends.  She'll be gone for a week, and she'll come back tanned and rested and full of stories to tell us when she comes up here for a few days, either just before or just after Christmas. Her gifts are wrapped and waiting for her, and when we find out which days she'll be here, I will put her gifts underneath her favorite silver tree in the living room. 

Speaking of trees... on my husband's birthday, Miss C went to his office and left him a small living Christmas tree, with a note that said "From your Christmas Elf."  Being that my husband had to work on his birthday, he said that the little tree was the highlight of the day.

And...... from celebrations to tragedy....... the shootings at the elementary school in Connecticut.  If there is a definition of obscenely wicked, then that story is it.  I just cannot imagine the horror in that school on that morning, and the terror those children faced, and even the ones who were not in the line of fire will now forever live with that memory.  If I were a parent, I'd be opting for home-schooling right about now.  If your child isn't safe in an elementary school, then where can safety possibly be found?  I am thrilled beyond measure that the shooter took his own life.  I would not have wanted him to be taken to jail, to be defended by the legal system, to have the opportunity to plead insanity...... people who can be that wicked, that evil, have no place on this planet, in my opinion. Your heart has to go out to the families, to the town, to everyone there...... a small picture-postcard town like that, and the children aren't safe.

We are becoming, have become,  a violent society, with distant hidden pockets of peacefulness.  My New York cousins tell me that we're living in a quiet little bubble up here in the hills.  And we are, without a doubt.  My wish for everyone, especially for parents of small children, is that they find their own little bubbles of peace.