'Tis The Season To Be Jolly....

My favorite has-its-own-plaza supermarket is open until midnight, and about 10:15 p.m. (22:15 for us former shift workers) I tore myself away from this infernal device to get a few supplies there. 

I like my milk and cream in glass bottles, and we still have a local dairy doing that, and you pay a dollar's deposit on each bottle, no matter whether it is the one litre as with the milk, or the half-litre for the cereal cream. And I don't like my milk bottles banging together and possibly getting cracked or broken. So I have a pair of thick woolly socks that I slip each bottle into for transporting them back and forth. Admittedly, it looks a little odd to see this old geezer walk up to the Service Counter, take out two large socks from one of the store's grocery bags, and begin removing freshly-washed milk bottles, to collect his refund.

But it's a great conversation starter, and we all enjoy it. Tonight, the little girl on the Service Counter and I got reminiscing about Christmases Past. She's one of our not-too-recent immigrants from, I believe, the Philippines, and she mentioned "going to church". And I said, "Midnight Mass, and afterwards going home to exchange our gifts, and have a nice breakfast, now that we've been to Communion and it's alright to eat again..." Her eyes twinkled, and she smiled and said, "Yes! I really miss the old days - it's just not the same any more!" And I said "Darling, I hope you have the best Christmas ever!" And she replied, "And you!"

I took the long way home, through neighborhoods I normally wouldn't need to go through, just so I could admire everyone's Christmas lights. There's a couple of places about half a mile from here that are magnificent. If it stops raining, or even if it doesn't, I'm going to have to go back there with the camera, and get pictures of it. It must have taken hours setting up one of those places, and more hours just planning it all out. Some people really do a wonderful job of decorating for Christmas.