…went out to get stuff for Grandma Van’s Cake, and of all things forgot the milk! I can used dried milk.

It was a zoo out there, people wandering around with a glazed look, frantically snatching the last strange stuffed animal or game, and me, I’m off in the baking aisle trying to find Baking soda. [Which usually gets used up in our marine tank.] But I found pecans. Not easy in the Northern States. Had to go for whole halves, as opposed to chopped, which is spendier. I found brown and powdered sugar. And Jane, bent on her own Christmas notions, exited with a can of popcorn.
We got our banana cream pie…we have our champagne. We got oil to refill the lamps—

Efanor loves to prowl the coffee table. He’s usually careful. Last night he got his tail tip in the oil lamp flame. Twice. There was a slight singed smell, but he wasn’t burned, and we don’t think he noticed.

We have one cat who loves to set himself alight—and one who believes that all Christmas bows are cat toys, but defective ones that cannot be used creatively after you have pulled them off their packages. She also loves to munch organza ribbon. A see-through ribbon will bring her across a room to attack it.