The Light — An Elegant Sufficiency

It’s the time of the year when light is celebrated and appreciated more than ever. Today, the 13th December, it’s a dreary Sunday. It’s raining outside and is sufficiently overcast that we’ve had the lights on most of the morning.

We began putting out our Christmas decorations yesterday. Not as many as in most years, we recognised that it’s going to be quieter than usual around here and perhaps time for a slightly different approach. But there’s always room for a bowl of light on the table - thank goodness for battery operated lights.

This morning, the third day of Advent, I lit the next candle on the kitchen table as I watched the last in the current series of Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Week. Dannii Minogue was sitting and I did a few drawings before admitting defeat and returning to the kitchen to admire the work of the professional artist who was completing a wonderful charcoal portrait of her. These Sunday morning sessions have become a routine time to sit with a pencil and drawing book for a couple of hours before lunch and I have really enjoyed them. Here’s hoping that this lockdown inspired programme will live long after the lockdown itself is only a memory.

Having completed my drawing - well, completed an elegant sufficiency of my drawing 😉, I went on to put a few more Christmas things here and there, aiming to complete the decoration by early afternoon, in time for us to sit back and savour it. I noticed the German windmills on the table, unlit and needing a little tlc before we could light the candles and sit back and watch them work. We treasure our windmills, the little one with priests processing around the Christmas tree was given to us by our dear German friends and the two-tier one with angels given to my parents by the same family. I lit the candles on our windmill and watched as the priests went round and round, beautifully smoothly. Sadly, the same was not to be said of the angels, who stood firm and refused to move. That wouldn’t matter, were it not for the possibility of the heat build up beneath those wooden windmill blades, resulting in scorching and the risk of fire. Somehow, in the packing up and storage, the central spindle has become unbalanced and try as I might, I could not get it to turn smoothly. After a while, I gave up, thinking that we can enjoy the windmill unlit this year, until I can work out how to repair it.

For there is something about the moving light; the reflections that flicker from the small metal windmill that works from a single tealight and which we found in a Swedish shop on one of our visits. And although we love our tiny little windmill that we purchased from the original Erzgebirge source of such things, especially since a family of bears walk round and round the tree, it doesn’t have room for any candles - original craft does not come cheap and our budget did not stretch to a candle sized one on that trip!

So, this afternoon, the third Sunday in Advent, we will sit back and appreciate the light from candles and lights here and there around the house. Coincidentally, it’s St Lucia too. It’s mid afternoon and already the light is going, which means that the tree we brought indoors and decorated yesterday is looking rather lovely.

It’s a bit lop sided, has a peculiar lump on one side (I took the scissors to it this morning) and isn’t quite as spectacular as many we’ve had. But our favourite toys hang from its branches and it stands and shines in the corner in celebration of the season. We are working towards Christmas for sure.