Hints Are Dropping

Thanksgiving has now past, and you know what that means.

As we drove out this morning, fairly early, to walk along the beach, we encountered a jolly figure on our road that reminded us what’s just around the corner.

We’ve written before about the caganer, the Catalan crapper who shows up in nativity scenes this time of year. The caganer is a mischievous reminder that, despite the high serenity of the Virgin Birth, nature has its way.

There, just to our left, one of our neighbors was celebrating the start of Christmas season by staging his own nativity. Squatting, grunting, and grimacing, pants at his ankles, hairy bum in the air, he was—how shall we put this?—dropping his load. Though we were a bit startled, to say the least, our neighbor didn’t seem to mind, or even notice us, as we passed.

And so it was that as we headed out this morning, we realized that around here anyway, it is indeed beginning to look a lot like Christmas.