As we critically approach New Year’s Eve I was by chance reminded of the importance of the narrow view of life. While you may think that such a perspective is unfavourable for its putative avoidance of the full picture, instead for me the direction is a reminder of the significance of that which is closest at hand, specifically family and friends.  I was prompted to this existential digression upon receipt this morning of charming photographs of members of a wonderful family of friends whom we met years ago on Longboat Key, Florida. They were then, and they remain so now, the model of perfection when it comes to family togetherness and noteworthiness. Indeed whatever may be said of the Americans, the one thing about which they are uncontradicted is their unqualified and oft-times remarkable devotion to family and friends. Meaningfully the lead character in our particular acquaintance is the mother of the family (who in turn is equally devoted to her own mother).

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Two days before New Year’s Eve! It’s rather late in the season to be thinking about cleaning off the grease and grime from the past.  But I have fortuitously received an exceptional alternative to wiping the history of my thoughts, for brightening the discolouration and smoothing the deterioration. I cannot enhance the smears but I can polish the stains!

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Inevitably one hearkens back to the past; curiously to reflect upon how things have changed, where people have gone or ended up and how things began so many years ago. And of course to repeat that some are no longer whinnying among us. Plus more acutely confronting where oneself has landed after the fray that is existence.

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In an instant everything has returned to normal.  The snow has melted, the streets are bare, the traffic is its usual controlled flow, there’s nothing left to do or to plan. It’s a pacific day.

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The social obligations may have cleared with the passage of Christmas but the atmosphere this morning upon awakening was less transparent. A waft of warm air has melted much of the light snow and once again exposed the tufts of grass and field of wild plants below a fog.

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“His palace (King Charles the Second) had seldom presented a gayer or a more scandalous appearance than on the evening of Sunday the first of February 1685.”

“One Roman Catholic, whose skill was then widely renowned, Doctor Thomas Short, was in attendance.”

“William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, an honest and pious, though narrowminded, man, used great freedom. “It is time,” he said, “to speak out; for, Sir, you are about to appear before a Judge who is no respecter of persons.” The King answered not a word.”

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Among the many other noticeable features today on Christmas Day was that which was welcome and noticeable for its absence; namely, traffic and retail occupation.  The city lights were dimmed on all accounts. Yet precipitously the happy season of private familial absorption and revelry is over in an instant. The lingering Christmas decorations already appear superfluous, inconsequential, even garish.  No more is there a burgeoning ambition to prepare for anything other than the New Year which (except for those who cherish a party or yearn for formalized drunkenness) is almost beyond redundancy.

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Quand je m’éveillai, et j’eus assez dormi,
Ouvris les yeux, vis un arbre fleuri,
Dont il sortait un bouton vermeillet.
Noël nouvelet, Noël chantons ici.

When I woke up, and had slept enough,
I opened my eyes and saw a tree in flower
From which there emerged a little red bud.
Noël, etc.

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year! A softened calm has settled upon the frozen snowy river and the whispy silent meadow. The roof of the tiny dillapidated barn, with its eerie windows and entrances open and unsealed, is neatly enveloped in clean white snow.  Ribbons of white in successive parallel lines like endless drawings along the open tarnished fields distinguish the rolling hills in the distance, going on and on to eternity. The dark trees stand tall and bare, their spindly scraggly branches shaded with snow. There is no sign of movement anywhere.  It is Christmas Eve, the night before Christmas.

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It was with no trifling measure of enthusiasm and application that I extricated myself from the car wash in the City today, December 23rd (a Saturday) mere hours antecedent Christmas Eve (a Sunday) which I have no doubt will remain an equally animated wellspring of retail commercial activity until the 12th hour, and headed as directly as possible out of the mix into the country. Though I had unwittingly taken the precaution to run into the City to perform my daily arrogation of arithmetic purity and decontamination over the noon hour (when you would be justified to presume the working classes might have paused for luncheon and thus removed themselves from the popular service venues), I had obviously miscalculated the reformed nature of the Scrooges who predominant the modern business envelope. Seemingly everyone had already abandoned their seat and desk to conduct the more domestic issues surrounding the gladdening Christmas season.

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