Little Christmas Eve

A day of preparations, a sense of closing down connections with the outside world.  I spent the morning making marzipan and icing our Christmas cake; the other two will travel up to family between Christmas and New Year.  The two long beech branches have been found pots which have been filled with burglar gravel from the driveway; completely free Christmas trees.  Michael came round with a large bunch of mistletoe and holly, complete with berries, that he had harvested from his fields this morning.  The mistletoe bunches will go over the doorways as they are poisonous.  I was looking at the old apple trees in the paddock behind the house this morning as they are festooned with mistletoe, gigantic clouds of it, and judging by supermarket prices worth about £1000.  Strange Druidic echoes, ancient oaks on the hill and giant bunches of mistletoe. The holly we will bring inside.

And I sorted boxes and cleared space and hauled the decorations in from the garage.    A grey day, gloomy and mild, although it is turning colder tonight.  I have read Jostein Gaarder's moving Christmas fable 'The Christmas Mystery' and it seems a Norwegian tradition to call 23rd December 'Little Christmas Eve'.