Kage Baker said the first Christmas Eve she remembered was 1955. For those of you, Dear Readers, who are keeping score – yes, that means she was 3 and 1/2 years old. Her memory went back an amazingly long way; in Technicolor and Surround Sound, for all I know. She remembered everything she saw on television in colour, though her family didn’t get a colour telly for another couple of decades.

The first Christmas Eve I remember was 1957, I believe; I was born in in July, 1953, so that made me 4 and a half. About all I remember about 1957 in general was that Zorro was on Disney, and a wildcat spent an afternoon in the tree outside our house (Mamma wouldn’t let us out of the house, so we watched it through the living room window). My memories were not in colour, except the RL ones, because we had a black and white television.

All the Christmas Eves were Merry, we left the tree lights on all night, and the cookies and carrots we left out for Santa and his reindeer were found satisfactorily gnawed in the morning. THAT, both Kage and I remembered,

I hope you did, too. And I hope this Christmas Eve is splendid and cozy, and the morning is bright and full of the sound of bells and crinkling paper.

Happy Christmas to you all!