It is begining to feel a lot like Dickens.

Ok, well not quite. However, it is still pretty dang magical right now, in my life.

While I have no fear of being visited by ghosts showing me how my life is totally wrong (probably because I am exactly where I need to be) everything around me has a fantastical quality which I want to hold on to for as long as I can. Since I was a child I have dreamed of spending a holiday season in London, surrounded by all of the whimsy and delights of the British imagination. After all, I have long felt, if it weren't for "A Christmas Carol" the Christmas we know today wouldn't be. Now, I understand much of this holiday I credit the British with inventing was stolen from other culture, the Christmas tree being Teutonic, the Christmas markets being from Central Europe, etc, however there seems to be a way the Brits put it all together to make it somehow their own.

I wandered today, down Oxford street, relishing in the holiday decorations, the huge lighted banners spanning the width of the street, high above my head, as I headed to Hyde Park, embracing the cold, crisp air, the kind which hurts a little the first few breaths outside. I watched people, tourists maybe, or perhaps people on their lunch breaks trying to fit in a bit of shopping before heading off to wherever they needed to be next. I delighted at the smell of roasting chestnuts being sold on various street corners, as if crumbs to the sugary spicy smells which would permeate my nose the moment I stepped foot in the Christmas market. I enjoyed the sight of couples falling in love, the sound of families shopping together, the taste of the mulled wine as I sipped it, feeling the warmth of all of these things, reminding me that sometimes the happiest moments in life are just a quiet series of blissful snapshots not just the grandiose events of life changing proportion.