As I mentioned in my last blog post, my daughter and son-in-law and their children celebrated an early Thanksgiving with me. They came bearing gifts, and in addition to eating a Thanksgiving feast together, which they prepared, we celebrated Christmas by opening our gifts to each other.

One of the things they bought me was a Halloween vinyl tablecloth to protect the table from spills by little people and their occasionally klutzy Nana. It worked like a champ and quickly was wiped clean.

But then I realized that Advent begins the fourth Sunday before Christmas, which was November 28th this year. Not to put too fine a point upon it, but I did not think the Halloween table cloth was quite suitable to cover the table for Advent.

So I did my best to adorn it with a beautiful tablecloth my grandmother embroidered decades ago. That linen seemed appropriate while we await the arrival of Our Lord.