Charlie Brown Avocado

Apologies if my talking about adding Christmas decorations to our avocado tree made it sound like the picture of festivity. It's actually a rather spindly Charlie Brown tree. Especially this year -- it's slightly out of balance because once of its limbs broke off in a windstorm during its summer in the garden.

I had fun decorating it, I must admit, mainly because I got to get our ornaments out of their boxes and actually use them, which we haven't done in a while.

I don't know where some of them even came from. Where did we get this penguin playing a lyre?

Snoopy on a...caboose? This belonged to Dave. We retrieved it years ago from his boxes of stored belongings in the basement of his parents' house. (Come to think of it, I suspect that's where the penguin came from too.)

Our Holyrood Castle crown came from our trip to Edinburgh way back in 2012...

...and these weird little bristly animals made from bits of pine cone and other woodland detritus I bought at Target back when we lived in New Jersey. Every time I use them I think, "These have lasted far longer than they were ever meant to."

Of course there's our drag alligator. (Yes, the price tag is still attached. She has a kind of Minnie Pearl thing going on.)

I discovered I also have a drag frog, which I'd completely forgotten about.

Anyway, you get the idea. I understand the appeal of Christmas ornaments, which can reconnect us with memories and people and events from our past.

The drain guy showed up yesterday and cleared the kitchen drain, which seems to be flowing fine now. Not to gross you out, but he pulled a big wad of long hair out of it. I find this very strange given that I don't have hair and Dave's hair is fairly short. I blame...the Russians! Mrs. Russia has long hair and I don't know which of their pipes may feed into this same drain. Fortunately we didn't have to pay anything because drains are covered under our landlord's home care policy with British Gas.

Also, in another momentous household development, Dave and I finished our turkey leftovers last night. Yay!

No sooner had we cut it up and put it on our plates than Dave said, "Now we need to talk about the Christmas menu!" I implored him to keep it simple. We'll be at the rental cottage in Pevensey Bay, just the two of us (and Olga), and I don't know what kind of cooking utensils or apparatus we'll have there. We certainly don't need to make another turkey or some other gigantic roast beast, though Olga might disagree.