POST BEGUN 0802HRS GMT SATURDAY 22 NOVEMBER 2025

 

62 years. I can still smell the unique classroom 'fragrance' of Elmer's Glue and Catholic Press textbook binding. 

 

We'd just come back in from recess, lunch was at least an hour off so we were getting our math books out. 

 

The door opened, I can still see the young novitiate enter Sr Mary Aloysius second grade classroom and hurry to Sister's desk to lean down to Sister's ear. It has been 62 years but I can still hear Sister's gasp over the soft sobs of the novitiate and I can still hear the shock and panic in Sister's voice as she told us to take out our Rosaries and go to our knees to pray God spared the life of President Kennedy.

 

We were in the second decade of that Rosary when Mother Superior pulled open the classroom door to bark into the room 'All pupils to the church quick and orderly!' 

 

Monseigneur English (62 years on and I still remember his name, his appearance, his voice) finally mounted the lectern to tell us we should now pray for the repose of President Kennedy's soul, for the strength and comfort of his widow and children, and most fervently for the USA. The older kids (the school went from first through 9th grade) whispered and were overheard, the word President Kennedy had died went through the large church like a summer wildfire out on the pine forests near Big Bear.

 

Soon nuns were fetching children, in family groups, from the pews, releasing us to parents or high school aged siblings (my older sister, a high school senior slated to be entering the convent after graduation, collected my eighth grade brother, first grade sister, and second grade me and then waited for our ride back out to the ranch in front of the church). 

 

Nothing was ever the same again after that day when President Kennedy was murdered, nothing. For five days solid, 24 hours a day, the only thing on television and radio was coverage of the horror unfolding. We saw it all including some of it live (Oswald's death, President Kennedy lying in State then the funeral, Walter Cronkite breaking into tears not once but several times over the next week). Our parents, hell every adult in our lives, everyone changed and the truth is in a way none of us children were able to articulate for decades, we changed forever. 

 

For many of us (although not me as sadly my family had endured losses and I'd been to family funerals), the televised funeral was the first time we'd ever seen children our age publicly mourn such a tragic loss. I don't even need to close my eyes to see little John-John saluting JFK's coffin, and I can still see Caroline holding her mother's hand as they came down the steps. She is so close to my age (only a year younger) that I grieved for her losing her father, at the time (and ever since) I couldn't help feeling deeply for a girl my age who'd lost her dad so very young.

 

As always this past 62 years, on 22nd November it is Caroline I think of, especially now her wee brother has been gone (16th July 1999), but even when he was still alive it was Caroline I prayed for on the 22nd of November.  I thought of her every year, I do this year, and I will continue to do so. I was 28yo when my dad passed away and I still feel it every year (21st December 1985) and honestly I know a loss like that (a much loved parent) is simply not something you get over or get past. If you're strong enough you get through it but it leaves a mark that never goes away. 

 

Posted 0842hrs Saturday 22nd November 2025

 

 

 

 

Friday 7 November 2025 POST BEGUN:1030hrs 

 

It's normal - opinions and tastes change over time. It's normal that what I liked in the 80s is miles in the rear-view mirror and I have hugely different taste in 2025. Partly down to evolving opinions and partly down to 'what the bloody hell was I thinking back then, OMFGoodness, those clothes/hair/wallpapers/furniture fabrics were AWFUL!!'.

 

This time of year it's all about seasonal decor, taste-wise. Once upon a time I loved a few straw bales on the front porch adorned with a life size scarecrow, plastic Indian Corn, pumpkins and wheat sprays (weather safe after waking one autumn morning to crows breakfasting on the live display before what they left rotted and went whiffy). I did a Halloween display people slowed the car to observe and the bonfire at the end of the drive on Halloween night while I attended to Trick or Treaters from my lawn chair became an annual neighbourhood event. Indoors I decked every room of the house with something seasonal. Every room even the bathroom.

 

Christmas?  Oh, CHRISTMAS - I loved our carefully chosen blow-moulds -light-up Santa and reindeer, the snowman with his carrot nose that also lit up, the artfully hung Christmas lights. Our indoors looked like the Father Christmas Grotto I loved so much when visiting Mum's favourite department store, and I had a mould-proof wreath I used around the bathroom mirror complete with polyurethaned clothes peg reindeer and a fake velvet bow. The Christmas tree, some years 6+ft and other years table-toppers, gaily decorated with handmade decorations of all sorts. Theme? What theme, our trees were loaded with tiny bird houses and gingham wrapped balls and small gift tags (Edwardian images) and decorations made by Fox and his older sister through their school years. If there was anything like a theme, the theme was anti-theme cosy because I thought those deliberate themes vulgar and pretentious.

 

When I moved permanently to the UK and married Paul I came across with two large suitcases - all the seasonal decor left after Hurricane Ivan went to my son, his ex-wife, and charity when I came over. The only things I brought besides some clothes were sewing and crochet supplies.  

 

But yeppers, it is now time to talk Christmas 2025:) Firstly I should mention when I got here to Scotland the only Christmas decoration Paul had was a single plastic fruit and pine spray (a small single, I add) and a strand of 30yo 'fairy lights'. Oh. Dear.

 

That first year I gathered larch cones (none bigger than one inch long) and glue-slopped some glitter snow across the bristles. Actually looked rather pretty on the 2ft Fraser Fir we bought live at the local ironmonger. 

 

Over the years the seasonal decor inventory grew - all four seasons have at least one floral bouquet for the mantel and at least one front window 'something' to let the passing world know we know the time of year. Plastic pumpkin Jack'O'Lantern guard the door Halloween week through the morning after All Souls (2 Nov), new quality battery operated Christmas lights frame the house. 

 

The tree became an artificial one (ok, more like five or six in varying sizes) which Paul loves because it means less fire hazard, less cost, and less hassle for him fitting lights especially after I discovered pre-lit PE trees plus found the perfect set of clip-on candle lights. Decor for the tree became primarily ornate glitter-glass antique reproductions, still no real theme, per se, but all glass and the little larch cones were retired. 

 

The Nativity scene went from one of those fixed figures in a rustic stable to a vintage Fontanini set painstakingly hunted down across various auction sites over the 15 years I've been in Scotland, to the simple Holy Family sculpture one we've used the past two years. 

 

We have several front door wreaths, all either vine and foliage or simple rings with jingle bells. The house was framed with soft white lights for Christmas 2024, we're thinking this year going with multi-colour. The candle bridge in the front window will be the one I've used for years. Oh wait, maybe the Star one. Or the mini village one...

 

All in, we have everything we need to decorate. In multiples. From farmhouse cosy to ornate glitter-glass baubles in every colour possible. We have several PE Christmas trees ranging in height from 2 to 4ft. I've even fallen for 'snowy' (flocked to the American reader) fake trees - we have snowy in two heights, 2 and 3ft, now and they are proper little stunners (yes, a bit more pricey than the green ones but worth the cost).

 

Speaking of PE, once you've seen a PE tree you will go straight home and bin that ancient PVC one. PE is so realistic you really do have to touch the bough to understand you're enjoying a fake tree.

 

Theme? Yeah, ok, Christmas 2024 I succumbed to 'theme' - we had a peacock tree complete with a Gisela Graham Peacock Fairy tree topper and in all honesty that tree was so pretty Paul would come out to the living room just to see the tree. He wanted to use the green tree so the peacock effect wasn't as nice as using the snowy one but he won the coin toss. dammit

 

Right. 2025. It's been a bit of a tough year nationally and personally. I don't have the will or physical strength to fool with much effort even repeating the peacock tree which this year will be the snowy as we alternate. 

 

Wreath on the door (jingle bells this year I think), mini village candle bridge in the front window and Paul can hang the house lights. The snowy tree is going to wear all 2inch red glass bells with a Gisela Graham Skandi Angel topper. We'll use the Holy Family sculpture on the mantel.

 

Christmas Lunch - steak, mash, button sprouts, and pumpkin pie. Steak pie from the butcher and peas for Boxing Day and a chicken crown with trimmings for New Year.  

 

Please add your voice to our daily (ceaseless) prayer for deliverance from the totalitarian Labour 'government' and islamic mob rule running Britain to perdition on the fast track. May Christmas 2025 see us safe from evil and 2026 bring sense and sensibility back to not only the UK but the entire world.

 

Posted Friday 7 November 2025 at 1155hrs