My Spanish sister posts beautiful photos of sunrise in the south of Spain where she lives. She goes out to walk every morning, usually towards the beach; so her sunrise pictures can be quite spectacular. Occasionally she asks us to send her some of our rain but on the whole I think she’s quite happy with her Mediterranean sun. Actually, in her case it’s Atlantic sun, but it’s all good.
We began the day here with sunshine and mostly blue sky too this morning but the temperature was only around 6 or 7 degrees! And there’s no knowing how long the blue sky will last. Still, it’s nice to begin with a bit of brightness.
While I was out running my English sister phoned me. So I arranged to call her back when I got home, thinking that she maybe had some important news to tell me as she was ringing first thing in the morning. As it turned out the main reason for her call was to discuss Christmas, giving me advance warning that she is not giving presents to anyone over the age of 18. Fair enough! I’ve worked on that principle for the extended family for a while now. Our own grandchildren, of course, are a different matter but it’s quite hard to keep track of your siblings’ grandchildren.
Christmas is creeping up on us. They are switching on thenChristmas lights in our village on Saturday, despite it still being November. But I suppose that if you go to all the trouble of fixing small Christmas trees over the doorway over every shop and cafe and even some private houses, and putting coloured lights and decorations all over the place, then you want to have time for people to appreciate the effort. Besides, as a friend of mine said the other day, November is such a dull and dark month that we need some Christmas brightness. Once we’re into January the days will gradually grow longer again but right now, as I was quite horrified to notice on my weather app this morning, the sun sets at a few minutes past four (yes, FOUR) in the afternoon.
Thinking of Christmas lights, Emma Beddington, writing in The Guardian, has been lamenting a little loss of sparkle:
“Christmas in York has lost a bit of its sparkle. Residents of Twin Pike Way have decided they won’t be putting on their traditional light display this year. The cul-de-sac started its display to mark the millennium and has raised more than £100,000 for charity, donated by people who came to admire the multicoloured extravaganza.
Now, though, the residents are carefully coiling up their LEDs and deflating their penguins. “Most of us are pensioners now, and it’s also due to other problems including electricity charges … and the cost of replacing decorations,” Alan and Pamela Reed told the York Press.”
Personally, I think the whole business of decking your house with Christmas lights and filling your garden with inflatable Santas and reindeers and snowmen has all got a little out of hand but it’s become a Christmas tradition. However, I suspect that many people will be following the example Alan and Pamela Reed.
On a darker note, in the country where the Christmas story began there is still little to celebrate. Here is a link to the ongoing diary of Ziad, a 35-year-old Palestinian, amazingly still surviving.
It is often said that Christmas is all about children; here is a comment taken from Ziad’s latest diary entry, said by a fellow Palestinian as they waited for saj bread:
“Four children. I have four children. What was I thinking?! It is true that the last two were not planned, but who brings four children in a place like Gaza? I go all day long to bring saj, to find milk, to get a certain medicine, to fight over water. Nobody should have children in Gaza.”
But…
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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