Christmas cards

need to be written. A Christmas letter needs to be written.

I have not yet given any real thought to Christmas. It might happen or it might not happen - happen in the sense that we will be able to get together.

We do not fuss a lot over Christmas, even less now that there are no small kittens around.  The Senior Cat has never been one to put up Christmas lights and trees. As kittens we never had a tree at home. Our maternal grandmother had an artificial tree. It was brought out every year. She decorated it with baubles and balloons and strands of silver tinsel. There was even a fairy for the top.

We were never there to help her decorate the tree. It just appeared. We thought it was "pretty" I suppose but we didn't find it exciting. Perhaps if we had been allowed to help decorate it then we might have been more interested? I don't know.

The Senior Cat's parents did not have a tree. It might have been a Presbyterian thing although I doubt that. I think it was simply that there were other things to do. Grandma would help us make chains  from crepe paper and cut out stars from old Christmas cards, silvery paper she had saved during the year. Grandpa blew up balloons as we watched - with slight trepidation, would the balloon burst? We made new chains and had new balloons each year. It was part of Christmas. 

We didn't get a lot of presents and we were expected to give presents we had made ourselves. They were simple things. Decorated pots with a plant we had grown from seed featured frequently on the present list. We made "books" with stories we had written ourselves and pictures we had drawn to illustrate them. 

Christmas Day we rushed to see if "Baby Jesus" had arrived in the manger of the nativity set. It was the day we had "fizzy lemonade" to drink. We ate chicken (a  huge treat when I was a kitten) and roast vegetables and then Christmas pudding with sixpences hidden in it. Later there was dark Christmas fruitcake and shortbread, cherries and apricots. We kittens played with new toys or read our Christmas books.  

And we looked at the Christmas cards with the angels looking down on snowy fields and the sleighs "dashing" through more snow. We knew what snow was but I was thirteen before I saw a tiny dirty brown slush of left over snow.  There should be snow at Christmas. It snowed the year I was fourteen and we thought of it as our first "proper" Christmas. Our parents were less impressed by the unusual cold front that went through the state that year!

And now I have cards to write to people we don't see. We no longer send cards to people we do see. They don't send cards to us either. It is by mutual agreement. Too many of them are old. The Senior Cat hates writing cards, indeed I doubt he could this year. It doesn't matter.  I think there might be a Christmas tree in the residence. We might, if things go well, be able to take him out for the day. That's all that really matters.  I don't want any presents apart from that.