Christmas Elves

Fiorella's granddaughter visited yesterday to help with Christmas decorations, and her specialty was dressing the tree, of course. You remember that last year she grabbed swatches of gold wrapping paper and stuffed them in between the fake branches of our fake tree, then crowed at the beauty she'd created.  Fio, of course, being an artist and a besotted grandmother, left the swatches in place all during the season and even took pictures of them.
     Granddaughter is older, more sophisticated and verbal this year , but she's still a Christmas tree afficianada, and was entranced by the lights, which her beloved daddy let her help him string on the tree. she also helped with the ornaments--thank you, God, for plastic.
    Actually, Fiorella thinks Granddaughter gets her as much artistic nature from her mother as her father because Daughter-in-law was pretty good at figuring out how to distribute the ornaments. (She also has the patience of Job.)
     The highlight of the day for Fio, of course, was when Granddaughter finally made the connection between her and the disembodied "Grammy" her parents have put her on the phone with from time to time, AND SHE LET FIORELLA TOUCH HER! Yep, your Fio misted over.
      Fiorella intends to concentrate on the Christmas card today. Her sonnet has been rewritten several times, and she wants to get it on a mock-up, printed, and mailed, although there will be a slight delay regarding the latter because your girl, who thought she was terribly clever by making use of a pack of envelopes that had been sitting in her art closet for years, suddenly realized that, for a sonnet-bearing card, she needed envelopes of a different size--5x8 rather than standard 4x9.
      Whatever--Fio still has more than a week till Christmas.