I will change the pictures -- i promise

but the truth is that I don't know how! Woe

It's almost Christmas. Last week I thought Kate and I would have a cozy girls evening and go buy a Christmas tree from the local guys on Park & 34th Street.  We wanted the experience of picking out the tree and carry it home. It was a routine that I remembered so clearly from untold Christmas tree buying  expeditions  with my Dad who was always well turned out in an  overcoat, hat and I don't mean baseball cap, and gloves.  That was how I saw the evening until Kate turned up at home with a couple of  school friends and looked surprised when I asked what Adam and Kyong were doing at the house? Going with us  to buy a Christmas tree, of course.  Hmm. Lets be open to a mid course correction here. Ok. lets do it. So we picked up my trainer Nick on the way cause I thought that without Arnie's help I would need extra hands. You know, where everybody helps carry the tree through the darkened streets with a light dusting of snow. ok, that's for books. Nick got the tree to the apartment house and then Adam and Kyong helped set it up. It was a totally different and wonderful experience. The guys worked really hard and we managed for the first time in years to get the tree up with an exquisite ornament that Arnie and I had bought several years ago. Normally we forget to put the top on until the tree is halfway decorated. It was sad to see how many of our old christmas tree ornaments had broken, especially the glass ones from World War 2 but there are still ornaments that I remember from my childhood. It is a living history tree. And this year I found tinsel, lots of tacky wonderful tinsel. I had trouble for several years finding any, and of course, blamed its paucity on environmental whacks. Maybe I was just late in buying it.

The tree looks wonderful.  It is Christmas. I have distributed my version of largesse to all the doormen. I made the requisite plum puddings with more brandy and beef fat than anything and sent them off to Columbus. Once I read that a pair of Victorian explorers had taken off on a cross Siberian trip with only plum pudding as sustenance, I became interested in plum puddings again.

This morning I had to track down an errant side of smoked salmon that had gone missing from Columbus. Just heard that it arrived. Paid some taxes. going to the gym. Having a  manicure....And transplanted a tree. Now that really was a first for me.