Christmas present and past

We had a lovely day, thank you all for your good wishes. 

Our dinner was a joint affair, Handsome Son bringing ham, roast potatoes, ginger ale, crackers, eggnog, plus home baked cookies from his co worker, sent for me! Joined with the  cheese, vegetables and cranberry sauce, and the many edible gifts around here, we did very well. Also pots of tea.

After he left, I slept quite a while.

One Christmas Day when he was quite young, we took him to the reenactment of General Washington crossing the Delaware, on Christmas Night, 1776,  only about 45 minutes from here, figuring that every American should see this at least once,  to pay our respects.

If you're not familiar with one of New Jersey's main claims to fame, read on

And, credit where it's due, here's the militia group that did the heavy lifting of getting Washington's Durham boat  across a wild river in a snowstorm.   Many other boats were also commandeered to get the army across.

Nowadays the  reenactment is done in daylight, and only weather permitting!

The scene of the Battle of Princeton is about a 15  minute drive, from here, well known locally. Inger and Steve, I expect you're familiar with it. New Jersey is full of historic places where battles were fought, and when I had Brit guests, I'd take them around to all these places where we  were hammered yet again and got our little red coats all dirty. 

And here's a Christmas wish from my friends including dog Jennie, who among many good social works, knit in their rec. time, well, Jennie helps, and include my socks and gloves in their knitted offerings to the County outreach which cares for homeless people.

I particularly like that a community dressed in black and white has a black and white dog and cat. Harmony.

Third from left is Sister Monica, my knitting contact person, and second from right Sister Suzanne Elizabeth, who arranged the goldwork embroidery workshop a few years ago which changed the direction of my artwork. Much to thank them for. They're all stars in their professions, aside from being nuns, scholars, social workers, a force for good. 

My reading is also historic. I finally got around to Crome Yellow, Aldous Huxley's first, much quoted and referenced, novel. It's a satire on the mores of his time, full of real people and places, disguised and fooling nobody.

It's pretty heavy going, doesn't hold a candle to his later brilliant essays. I think, once again, that the early twentieth century English canon is full of works written and published by a tiny group of people with great social standing and privilege. I doubt if they'd make it in a competitive modern publishing world. Mitford, Forster, Waugh, Greene, readable, but I don't think the same works by writers without their access would have been accepted. 

I'm always a bit sceptical about "classics" for this reason. Some, such as Middlemarch, A La Recherche,  all of Austen, are certainly works of genius, but there's a lot we needn't get all excited about. 

Even the great Shakespeare was best in the tragedies and histories. His comedies are just plain unfunny, the tedious old Falstaff clunking about, usually overacted, probably good in their time in a different environment, different audience.

On a cheerier note, here's a little bouquet, courtesy of Emma Mitchell. 

Happy day everyone! Enjoy your day despite grouchy bloggers!

There's usually some kind of little bouquet to be found.