I’m looking forward to Christmas this year.

It’s been a difficult year. The political situation both here and in the US is depressing and imbuing me with both hopelessness and resentment, not to mention fear that all the gains we’ve made in a humanitarian sense in the last few decades — women’s rights, LGBT rights, steps towards racial equality — are under threat by angry, impotent old white men who are making their last gasp effort to hold onto power. We can’t let the bastards win, but they’ve stacked the deck and all we can do is hold fast to what’s right and what’s moral, and keep putting one foot in front of the other, slogging on until we prevail.

On a personal level, I’ve spent the last six months trying to help an elderly aunt and uncle, who can’t live independently any more. Months of driving up and down the A46 (90 minutes each way on a good run), to hospitals and care homes. Finally, at the beginning of December, I moved them to a residential home near me, and they’re settling in. I still have a lot of running about to do, but at least I can get there in 15 minutes. It makes life a bit easier. But it’s been stressful and time-consuming, and I’m only just starting to draw breath and look about me and think about getting back to my normal life. My one and only resolution for next year is to get back to some focused writing. Poor Rafe Lancaster has been looking out of a window for days now, giving me sidelong glances and complaining that he’s fed up with the view and would I just blooming well get on with it? Poor lamb. I’ll rescue him after the holiday and send him off to Aegypt for an adventure. That’ll perk him up.

One bright spot this year has been decorating the house for the holidays. I’m an unashamed lover of all things glitzy and bright, so here are a few photos to share the glitter with you in an environmentally friendly way (!):

Have a great holiday, whichever one you celebrate at this time of year, and here’s to every happiness in the coming year. A sentiment very ably captured by this Victorian Christmas card of bicycling owls, to match the rabbits at the top.