It's beginning to look a lot . . .

Yeah, it is. We're going down South for Christmas so I decided not to do much decorating. No 14-foot tree as in some years past; no glass and crystal second tree; no 34 candles, one in every window.

But the Moravian Star seemed a necessity, as did the Santa Face. Then Ransom and I talked about the candles and he said they looked fine in the old part of the house, so 19 of them went up. And there was this wreath lying around in the basement and all these strings of unused lights -- and so it went up. And of course the ornaments hung every year above the dining room table . . . they had to make an appearance, right?

Finally, I made my annual trek to Authentiques and bought a few new things there and, well, it IS beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

The trip to the store was sandwiched between my first visit to the Big Apple Circus and my annual hearing of all six Brandenburg concertos. Enough said about the circus. As for the Bach, it was a wonderful afternoon, as always. Ransom and colleagues played beautifully to an appreciative and packed house. Don't know exactly how these pieces came to mean Christmas at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, but they do, and I'm glad for it.

But back to the decorations. The Moravian Star symbolizes Ransom's time at the North Carolina School of the Arts and came from a shop in Old Salem. The city of Winston-Salem was founded by Moravians in 1766 and uses these stars as their official Christmas street decoration. The star was originally designed in Germany in the 1830s, probably to teach kids geometry.

The Santa Face is far less historic, though it does carry the weight of time in my family. My parents bought it for my brother's first Christmas. That makes it 65 years old this year. Yes, it's tacky as all get-out, but it means a lot to me. I've known it my entire life.

The trip to Authentiques produced this bakelite reindeer that reminded me of the later plastic ones we had as kids. This one is likely from the 30s. The other ornaments are new, but I love them just as much; there's a carp, a zeppelin, a large purple globe and, pictured below, a spaceship.

It's a time of wonder and whimsy, even for this crusty old curmudgeon. Merry Christmas everybody!