Deck the halls, tra la la

St Daniel
Yesterday's weather: Boring. Well I suppose it is December

I've been decking the halls today. Well OK, they aren't exactly halls but they've been decked anyway.

I do enjoy getting the decorations out every year. Some have good memories from years gone by. I remember buying certain items. The Santa character from the MoMa shop in New York; The reindeer candle holder from Maplewood, NJ; the garlands from Santa Fir in Shamley Green, the best Christmas tree shop in southern England; there are the knitted decorations I made when the girls were younger and I was going through a knitting phase (I'm going through another right now) and their knitted stockings. We even have a little bell that Jon says was on his Christmas tree when he was a child. I think that is the oldest one.

It seems odd putting these decorations up in our new home here in France and I wonder what the people on the other side of the hill will be thinking of our twinkling lights across the valley - we never close our shutters, preferring to look out at the night sky.

All the villages locally have their own Christmas lights up now, they do look remarkably like the lights that were up during the summer when each village in turn was en fête but then, why not recycle them in winter? Some houses have lights outside, mostly the tubes of lights that have become popular in recent years. And then of course there are hanging Santas all over the place.

I feel very sorry for Santa, it just looks like they don't like him much over here. He is thrown from windows willy-nilly and dangles from the end of a piece of string as if he has just been convicted of some heinous crime and sent to the gallows. I don't think they are at all festive but rather a sorry sight. I must try and photograph one to prove my point.

Trees have appeared outside houses rather than inside and they are decorated with coloured paper bows - I wonder how they will stand up to the torrential rain we've had recently, not to mention the high winds.

My next task is to try and find the Christmas CDs that Jon carefully hid in a safe place ........