Getting Ready?

How are everyone's preparations for Christmas going?  So far I have managed to keep Philip's Fast to a reasonable degree, although we haven't gone completely vegetarian.  I'm keeping to the Roman Catholic definition of fasting, which means one 'regular size' meal, the sum of the rest of what I eat not equaling what I have for the regular meal, and also having vegetarian meals on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday as prescribed by the Rule and Constitutions of the Confraternity of Penitents.  I'm also keeping up with daily prayer, both the Liturgy of the Hours - Morning and Evening Prayer, with the Little Hours said all together at midday, plus Night Prayer before going to bed; and the Kathisma Psalter about which I posted earlier.  I really enjoy praying the Psalms.

What I haven't done is put up the tree, decorate the house and do a lot of baking.  I have some Moravian Sugar Cake to bake before Christmas, and I'm more and more tempted to go to a tree lot on the 23rd or 24th and buy a tree with a pretty top to cut off for a tabletop-size tree........we have less and less space and I just dread rearranging the entire first floor to have a place to put an artificial tree I don't really even like anymore.  It's too large at the bottom and not nearly tall enough. I need a 9-foot skinny tree, not this 7-foot poufy Norway Spruce that I have.  Not that the existing tree isn't pretty - it is, it just won't fit anywhere any more.

I guess I'm so busy with both the daily things that can't stop just because it's going to be Christmas soon, and also with interior preprations for the season, that I have no energy left for externals.  So, my heart is preparing but my house looks as if it's occupied by people who ignore Christmas. (I was going to say pagans, but I remember reading somewhere that there is some sort of pagan winter-solstice thing that happens right around Christmas, although I don't suppose a tree and stockings are part of what one does to prepare for that.  Is it Lughnasa?  That involves dancing or something, I think.  My, how I ramble.)

Also it will be my birthday soon and I wish it could be different this year, but it won't, so that's that.

In reviewing this post I see several things I could link, but I'd rather just post and go do something else.  I might edit in the links later.