“Mistletoe," said Luna dreamily, pointing at a large clump of white berries placed almost over Harry's head.

He jumped out from under it. "Good thinking," said Luna seriously. "It's often infested with nargles.”

I won't insult you by telling you where that quote comes from...

All I will say is 'May your mistletoe not be infected with nargles!"

And my dream of a white Christmas is just that - a dream. Christmas here is mud coloured. I've just spent an hour washing Poppy's legs, drying them and coating them with Vaseline in the vain hope that the mud won't stick. Her Christmas treat.

A Caroline's weird thought association alert:

Possibly the crassest Christmas song in the ever ever.

The perfect Christmas

 "We shall find peace"

"We shall hear angels."

 "We shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.”

Thank you, Anton Chekov.

And today, shame about the horizontal rain, lashing wind and almost complete darkness when I was sorting out the horses at 7 a.m.

Not so perfect!

“He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree. ”

...said Roy. L. Smith and for that thought, thanks. And you can substitute 'She' for the 'He'

by Dixie Allen

Rush, rush, hassle, hassle, stress, stress.

That's what the lead up to Christmas has become for me in the last few days.

Why, why, oh why? The meal to prepare is only like a Sunday lunch. The presents and cards are like a lot of lovely birthdays all rolled into one. It's a time to be thankful for friends and family...

SO - away with all the silliness.

Here's my favourite carol:

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day.

Only, I'm going to make it today.

Happy is she who still loves something she loved in the nursery.

She has not been broken in two by time; she is not two women, but one, and she has saved not only her soul but her life.

(With thanks to G.K Chesterton - almost - because I subsituted female for male pronouns)

by Roxanne Ross

 I woke up excited today! It's December 1st and I have my very own Advent calendar!

Here it is:

None of your chocolate-filled commercial extravagance - took me a while to find this one.

And the picture behind the first little door IS...

...a christmas stocking.

Now, Mr. Tesco, since it's December, I can go into your shop without being grumpy about the Christmas tree and the signs saying 'Merry Christmas to all our customers'...which have been there since the end of October...

Something about an old-fashioned Christmas is hard to forget

...said Hugh Downs who I've never heard of, or, if you're feeling particularly hot on grammar today, of whom I've never heard.

I have two Christmas stories (apart from that one in the bible) and they're both about my father.

He was born on Christmas Day. (Poor fellow. Always hard done by with the joint Christmas-birthday presents)

Now, this might not be true but it's a good story anyway...

His father was a vicar. According to the annals of family history,  Grandfather was taking a service on Christmas morning when my father made his grand or possibly squally entrance into the world. Someone raced to the church to announce the glad news, flung open the door and was met by the sound of the congregation singing...

Unto us is born a son

Christmas story number two, also set in church. This time, St.Matthew's Church, Northampton, when I was a child. There, the seating consisted of rows of wooden chairs with slatted backs,

....just like that only all joined together in twelves.






In front of us was a young family with a podgy toddler. Half way through the service, she stuck a leg through the slats of the chair in front of her and couldn't get it out on account of the bunching up of all her rolls of baby fat.

 Oh,the screams!

Daddy to the rescue. He raced home, grabbed a saw and during the sermon... skwee,skwee,skwee, skwee... he sawed through the back of the chair. (No, he DIDN'T amputate the baby's leg, even though, as a doctor, it might have crossed his mind - which would have been a better story, really)

Funny, the things that stick in my memory...