Well, I’ve brought the Christmas tree in from the garden. It’s not really a Christmas tree, more what a friend of mine would call a Christmas shrub, vaguely related to fir trees since it has needles and seems to be evergreen. So far it’s only got lights, no decorations. The decorations are waiting until I have all my elves - the three smallest grandchildren, two of whom live close by while the third is a member of the southern branch of the family. She arrives on Tuesday. It’s become a tradition that the three small people decorate the tree.
Looking for lights and decorations and such, I located the makings of the nativity scene, which is often played with by the smallest in the family. Unfortunately Joseph seems to have disappeared. I must look a little deeper in the box of decorations. It is, however, beginning to look rather like Christmas in my living room.
Here’s a link to a story about one of the earliest artificial Christmas trees. It’s a scrawny-looking thing, bought in 1920 for 6p, according to the article. Now I’m assuming that was 6d, as we used to express 6 old pence, back in the days of pounds, shillings and pence, because surely 6p, 6 new pence, would have been worth quite a lot more in old money. Anyway, it was brought out every Christmas, handed down through the family and has now been sold by auction for a ridiculous £3,400.
I was talking Christmas trees to one of my nodding acquaintances yesterday. He told me he went to a local garden centre the other day to buy one and found that they had only two left. In the space of three days they had sold some 200 trees! I seem to remember it was a similar thing that led to my buying a Christmas shrub a couple of years ago. It’s lived in the garden in a pot since then.
There’s beginning to be pressure to organise a proper ceasefire in Israel/Gaza, but different countries have different ideas of what that means. Here’s a post from a friend of mine this morning:
“If you wonder what Baerbock and Cameron mean when they suddenly demand "a 'sustainable' ceasefire", here's Oliver Dowden's interpretation - and after all, he's the Deputy Prime Minister!
"So, that’s why we continue to support Israel in its right to self-defence, to remove the threat of Hamas, and at the same time to get those hostages back. *Those are the two things that ensure we have a sustainable ceasefire* …
The difference between those calling for a ceasefire now and the position of the UK government is that *a ceasefire can’t be sustainable until we’ve dealt with Hamas*.
(Guardian update 11:04)
And that's a bit different from the “immediate and durable” truce France's foreign minister is demanding.”
Meanwhile, the killing continues. Here’s another post from the same friend:
“Don't try to tell us these people were "collateral damage"!
"Eighty-five Palestinian athletes killed in war, Palestinian report says
The Palestinian Football Association says it has documented the killing of 85 Palestinian athletes, including 55 football players and 30 players in other sports, since the start of the war, the Palestinian news agency Wafa is reporting.
The association said in a report on Thursday that Israeli forces “targeted Palestinian athletes and sports facilities, especially football players and club presidents, administrators, referees and others”, according to Wafa.
The report said the football players killed included 18 children and 37 youths, including two in the West Bank, while four players were wounded in the Gaza Strip between 7 October and 6 December.
It said Israeli bombing had led to the destruction of nine sports facilities – four in the West Bank and five in the Gaza Strip.
The report said Israeli forces detained three athletes in the West Bank, while in the Gaza Strip the number “is infinite in light of the number of missing people there”.
(Guardian update)”
And then, there is this from Jewish Voice for Labour
"Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen won the Hannah Arendt Prize, named after the C20 German American Jewish philosopher who devoted her life to understanding totalitarianism, revolution, the nature of freedom and political life.
Then, in a substantial essay In the shadow of the Holocaust published in the New Yorker on 9th December, Gessen applied critical insight into trying to make sense of how the politics of memory in Europe today impedes understanding of Israel and the Gaza crisis.
A comparison made between the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and that of Jews in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe proved too much for the progressive Heinrich Böll Foundation, associated with the German Greens, and for the city of Bremen, both of which pulled out of hosting the award."
There we are.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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