Holiday hope

"Decoration Dawn," today's 5 x 7 watercolor holiday greeting card

 I won't gripe about people putting up holiday decorations early this year. I don't think there can be an "early."

I'm not talking about the holiday music already playing in stores, trying to sell more merchandise. "Black Friday" has already become a month-long endurance tests for unending ads, which does make sense as merchants also struggle to survive.

But I wouldn't be surprised if some people are more than ready to hang some wreaths, get out holiday lights, and more. In the biologic and political disease ridden year of 2020, we need some holiday hope.

I saw these fence posts in the Texas Panhandle a few years ago, and  thought it would be appropriate to hang some holiday hope on them. It would brighten my day to see them, no matter how early, this year.

Real mail season

""Hoping for mail," 5 x 7 watercolor holiday greeting card

Remember the expectation of going to the mail box, the joy of getting real mail?

Not the deluge of campaign ads, nor the constant barrage of other advertising that arrives every day. My first stop from the mail box is the outdoor trash receptacle.

The same is true of the flood of email messages that show up in my in-box every day. A daily chore. Scan and delete most of them. Since retirement, thankfully the flood of mundane, often unnecessary work-related stuff has ended. But still, rarely is there anything significant...certainly not exciting--remember how we were excited when email first started? No "You've-got-mail" anticipation. Not now.

But what is still exciting--as in can't-wait-to-open-it, are the rare times when real mail, handwritten from friends and family, shows up.

The walk to the mail box, a real mail box, was worth it.

If there is a season when more of that happens it is the holiday season. Thus today's watercolor.