The First Week of December

 An anonymous comment on this blog reminded me that I had not written here for some time. I was a little shocked to realise that it has been almost three months. Not that a great deal has happened: for October and November in Cyprus in general, just browse the archives for those months, with a little masking and distancing thrown into the mix. 

We were delighted to be able to host two sets of visitors, although, sadly, others had to cancel. But in general, life has continued its normal daily round, as far as I'm concerned. And now we're in Advent: a week into December and already past the second Sunday of Advent, since the first one was on November 28th. 

Christmas preparations always begin with the Christmas cake; this year I made it on October 31st, and then put it in an airtight container to mature.  I have remembered to 'feed' it with a little brandy once, and will probably do so again, but I tend to forget about it until the week before Christmas, when I ice it. 

Other preparations began slightly before I was expecting them to, when we were on a hunt for Christmas cards on the last Friday of November. They weren't yet available in the UK on our visit there in August, and I've never had much success in finding them here. We didn't find cards but we did see some rather nice looking poinsettias at the size we wanted, for a good price: 

I mentioned on Facebook that I couldn't find cards, and a local friend let me know about two shops that sell them locally. It turned out to be much easier than I thought to find them. 

Two days later, November 28th, was Advent Sunday. Something else we had found in one of the shops that sadly lacked Christmas cards was a wreath that was decidedly less tacky than most of what that shop had to offer. It was probably intended as a door wreath, but I realised it would be just right for a candle.  So I put it up and we lit our first candle:

I also made some mincemeat, which I usually do every other year. It doesn't take long and is very simple - if anyone's interested, here's our family recipe for mincemeat, passed down at least two generations so far. The original one was for twice as much, and in pounds rather than grams... and the annotation at the end said it makes 'an enormous lot'.  Mine makes a much more conservative 2kg, which is usually plenty for us for two years. I keep the extra kilogram in the fridge.

The following day, November 29th, I went to the shops mentioned above and found a good selection of Christmas cards. Last year we only sent about eight, to close family members, as the postal system was so bad. This year it's better - we hope - and so we're back to sending about thirty. Far fewer than we sent ten years ago, but many people have stopped sending them altogether, and we've lost touch with some folk. 

We had agreed to host some Advent discussion groups starting on December 1st, so decided to do our annual tree-decorating (with help from young friends) on the last day of November. Outrageously early, as one friend commented on a Facebook post I made, and yes, that's true. But if not at the start of Advent, when...? Christmas Eve is too late, in my view, and any date between Dec 1st and Dec 23rd entirely arbitrary. Besides, I like seeing our tree and Nativity figures. 

The cats are now middle-aged, but it didn't stop them attacking the tree about ten minutes after it was up: 

'Who, me?'  

His sister had raced through to the dining room and was looking entirely innocent although it was almost certainly her fault. 

The Advent discussion group for our church on Wednesday evening, a mixture of in-house and Zoom, was small but enjoyable - hopefully more will join for other discussions. 

On Saturday I joined the Christingle-making group at the church, for the first time. There were eight of us, and it took about an hour to produce over sixty Christingles. We all cleaned the oranges first (harvested from another church member's garden), and cut up foil. Then it turned into a production line. My role was to attach the red tape around the oranges. I don't know what tape it was, but it stuck beautifully. 

On Sunday, in addition to preparing soup, bread and a dessert for our friends who come over every other week, and lunch for the two of us, I made my first batch of mince pies:

We went, with our friends, to the Christingle service in the evening. 

We're fairly used to having chairs in groups of two, wearing masks, having our safe-passes checked etc, but I don't suppose I'll ever like it. It was a pleasant service, starting with a local choir singing (outside). Richard ensured it all worked, so that the choir could hear the music played back, and the congregation could hear the choir.  He also set up the livestream which, if you're interested, is here: 

(The actual service starts about 24 minutes into the stream). 

We lit our second Advent candle on Sunday after we returned from the service with our friends and ate our meal a bit later than usual. 

On Monday morning this week I went to the local Post Office to buy stamps, having written the cards in odd moments over the weekend, and plan to post them all tomorrow.

In the afternoon the local reading group met to discuss a couple of books, and to eat some shared Christmas goodies including more mince pies. 

Today I started ordering presents for the family in the UK... 

And we're only at the end of the first week of December.