Christmas Eve is three weeks from today. That thought is simultaneously wonderful and terrifying. Instead of continuing to focus on how few hours fit into 21 days, let’s cast our eyes backwards and reflect on three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Feeling tired, cranky, and generally achy, I lie down for half an hour. I feel so much better when I get up.

2. Julia and I had made plans to meet for lunch Monday. Knowing there would be a friendly face halfway through the day made it that much easier to go back to work after five days off.

3. Today’s entries in the Virtual Advent Tour include a look at Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” I can’t remember if I own a text version of the story, but I have an LP of Thomas reading it. Wanting to share it, since Nymeth mentioned how the language practically demands to be read aloud, I found a copy of it on NPR that gives additional background information on its recording. Dylan being Dylan, it really is an incomparably beautiful aural experience. “I said some words to the close and holy darkness and then I slept.”

What’s been beautiful in your world during these days of shortened light?

I’m currently reading four books and none of them are really holding my interest (despite several of them being quite good):

• Magic by the Lake (Edward Eager) is the story of four siblings who end up vacationing next to a wishing lake. I’m nearly done with this sequel to Half-Magic, which I read seven years ago.
• The Complete Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi) is the famous graphic novel (is novel really the correct term when it’s a memoir?) of a girl growing up in Iran in the 1970s and 1980s. It’s excellent, but not really the sort of thing I can lose myself in.
• The Sorceress (Michael Scott) is the third book in the Nicholas Flamel series. I think this has the exact opposite problem of the graphic novel, in that I want to have the time just to read it straight through. Or I’m getting burnt out on the characters. Not sure which yet, really…
• Merry, Merry Ghost (Carolyn Hart) is the latest book I picked up from the library and, as you might guess, is a seasonal mystery with a dead woman as the protagonist sent to earth to serve as, essentially, a guardian angel. Again, I don’t know if it’s just my state of mind or if I’m just not wowed by her writing, but I’m having a hard time getting into it.

Which one of them should I pull to the top of the pile? Or what should I be reading instead?

Oh, I meant the apartment, not this post, but still…

• Our drive home was much more successful than our drive up. Well, technically both were successful because we did reach our destinations, but the return trip was five hours shorter… Rudi really trucked it on his portion of the driving, but I’m taking some credit because I drove a bit further so he could have a longer nap.
• Yes, we are still cleaning the apartment. Tonight we emptied two huge boxes of stuff, as well as dealing with some other stuff. Plus I found a book that I’ve been meaning to return to the friend who was kind enough to lend it to me last year and a couple tops I’d misplaced. There’s still a ways to go, but it does feel good to see bags of recycling walk out the door each night.
• Our tree-trimming party is in five days. Five!
• I’m not excited by any of the books I’m currently reading nor by any of my knitting. Probably that’s just as well, given the aforementioned two bullets.
• We’re going to the movies tomorrow night to see the new George Clooney airport movie. It’s done by the same guy who directed Juno, so I’m hoping for something equally lighthearted and sweet. I’ve seen the soundtrack, so it definitely has that going for it already.
• I’m taking part in the 2009 Virtual Advent Tour later this month. Each day, several bloggers from around the world will share something related to their holiday celebrations. It was such fun to read everyone’s contributions about their holidays last year, so I’m pleased to be able to be a participant this year.

  Now I just need to figure out what to write about when it’s my turn on the 22nd… Any ideas?

• Today marks 30 days of consecutive posting. I’m planning to keep it up through December, but I will stress less about it if I fall asleep without writing. This month when that happened, I forced myself to get up to blog. That’s just silly…