Library of Congress on Flickr

LOC's color photos from the 1930s and 40s

The cold that felled the rest of the family this week, keeping C sprawled on the couch surrounded by tissues and adorned always with a sippy cup*, finally reached me yesterday. Somehow being able to breath through my nose seems a necessary prerequisite for sketching, so I have nothing new to offer up today except a link to a collection of photographs from the 30s and 40s which the Library of Congress has just uploaded to Flickr.

* A sippy cup of herbal tea that is, with honey liberally applied to it and lemons squeezed in if we have them. Tea is necessary for health in the Czech Republic and Caroline at 4 firmly believes this too.

The Christmas tree has gone up

In Namesti Miru, that is. Caroline and her babysitter walked over last night, after it got dark at 4:30, and came home bearing gingerbread Mikulas (St. Nick) cookies. Caroline says the tree goes up and up and doesn't stop and people are already singing.

She is too, mostly her own improvisations about Santa Claus coming our way. I'm teaching her more traditional Christmas carols out of a big piano book I ordered from the States for Christmas. I've been playing my way through it on the weekends, working up its easy pieces into something I wouldn't mind playing for friends, or at least our family.

As December gets closer and my work gets busier I find myself cramming Christmas pleasures into all the moments of peace I can grab. When I'm home, Caroline and Will have a surfeit of mandarin slices to choose from (for the smell of a just snapped open orange). C and I spend my free Saturdays drawing designs for cards we'll probably send in January. It's early still, and Will thinks I'll be tired of Christmas by the time it arrives, but I know that by the beginning of December I'll be working until midnight, weekends too, and will have hardly a moment to spend with Caroline enjoying ourselves, building her Christmas memories.