It has been over a month since the last posting. Olive is fine, but I am still getting over the shock of November 8. This is not a political blog, so I will not make any comments here.

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The holiday season does not seem to be affecting Olive much this year. I finally caved in and bought a pre-lit artificial tree after deciding that I was tired of cleaning up the needles and sap. Still I felt like the Grinch not putting up a real tree. On the other hand the artificial tree is a very nice one that looks like a real tree unless you take a very close look. I seem to be able to put more ornaments on it than I could with real trees. To my surprise it was a bit wider than the space that exists between my couch and a wall so that I had to rearrange some furniture. I moved an end table to place in in front of my glass door to the deck (I seldom open that door anyway) and next to the tree. On the table I put a glass nativity scene that I bought some twenty one years ago at a Christmas shop in Essex along with a figure of an angel playing a flute and Santa Clause. I have always thought of it as Santa pointing to the nativity and saying “not me, this is what is important”. In other words, the holiday is about peace on earth and goodwill to your fellow man, not commercialism and material things.

                                                                                                         

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Speaking of the holiday season and “peace on earth”, I am posting a link to one of my favorite holiday cartoons “Peace on Earth”. I come to find out that it is the only cartoon ever nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize (no, it didn’t win). Made in the 1930s before WW2 started it depicts a post-apocalyptic world at Christmastime. Squirrels and other small animals represent the small folk who rebuild civilization and establish a peaceful society. The cartoon was re-made during the 1950s by Hanna-Barbara (the folks who made the Flintstones and other cartoons); I have seen both versions and prefer this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfH3MXYF5Xo

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Recently Candlewick posted on Facebook some photos of day-care dogs at play. One of them was of Olive with the caption “Olive at a rare quiet moment”. It's one of my favorite photos of Olive.