Seven moments to squash my inner Scrooge

• the Rotary  Club Santa-in-his- sleigh float coming by our house with ridiculously loud and jolly music,  grown men in daft costumes jingling past and my sons in their twenties going out to look
• a friend’s gift of a white swan’s feather, carefully retrieved from the river, tagged and dedicated to my writer self
• a beautiful boy in his adoring grandmother’s arms, wide-eyed and serious with delight – he pointed at the Christmas party guests and a model Father Christmas, wanting each named and remembered
• a shy smile from a gentle giant of a shop assistant when  I gave him a teeny gift of chocolates because his wit and good humour had delighted me all year
• unabashedly belting out Christmas carols – and people being kind enough to say they enjoyed it
• the pause of reflective quiet after two lovely opera singers sang Rutter’s Angel Carol at the Beach House
• the light from the Cathedral pouring colour out onto the snow