Advent calendars...

When I was a little kid, I remember being frustrated by advent calendars. They emphasized to me how slowly Christmas was coming. Only one window per day - ! And usually nothing exciting in the window anyway, though I remember one good year when my Advent Calendar had a chocolate behind each window.

So now, when times goes too fast anyway, Advent Calendars aren't so frustrating, especially ones that are online. A few years ago, a Dunnett-fan friend made a Dunnett-related advent calendar - with art and references from the books behind the windows. This year, I've found two good ones:

The BBC Doctor Who Advent Calendar - it has games; I just wasted a good five minutes doing an abominable job of guessing who was behind the Santa masks. Well, I got two wrong, that seemed abominable to me!

The National Gallery Advent Calendar, with assorted art from the National Gallery in London - which I would think is one of the best art collections in the world.

And now there is snow on the ground. It snowed most of the day yesterday, when it wasn't occasionally sleeting or raining. Talking about it, Pat and Sandi and Sheila and I all instantly thought of Camelot - "The snow it is forbidden till December, and exits March the second on the dot" - we'll see what happens on March the second. We then watched Camelot as part of Sandi's birthday, and I enjoyed it at least as much as ever - it's been years since I've watched it right through. Love the music. Love Franco Nero and Richard Harris, though not Vanessa Redgrave. Love the costuming. It made for a nice relaxing afternoon.

Coming home, I saw that more and more people on my street have pretty Christmas lights on their houses and trees. I love that: coloured lights in darkness.

So now I start to feel some Christmas spirit. Maybe I can find time this weekend to write Christmas cards, and put up some decorations. I won't be able to get many Christmas presents for people this year - I wish I could! - maybe I can think of present-substitutes.