I will be home in time for Christmas.

It's always a little hard to leave Mexico, and leaving right before the holidays is perhaps the hardest. The giant Christmas tree just went up in front of the church last night. Thousands of handmade tin stars hang over the streets, embedded with colored glass beads and lit from within. The poinsettias (or "nochebuenas") decorate the windowsills. There is a concert every night of the week. It is hard to leave, in the middle of all this celebration, to return to our own Christmas up north, where the weather is so very different.

But I don't really mind because I'll be home, just in time for Christmas.

There's a reason there are so many songs about going home for Christmas. Many of them are from decades past, in the heyday of movie musicals. I imagine it must have been a challenge for songwriters, sitting around a swimming pool in Los Angeles, penning lyrics about snow falling and sleigh bells ringing and Christmas trees.

One of my favorite holiday songs is about Christmas in Australia, where going home for Christmas means arriving at the hottest time of year, with family sitting outside drinking "white wine in the sun." People write about being especially determined to get home at Christmas and especially lonely if they don't make it home.

I know there are plenty of people who don't go anywhere at Christmas and have given up the whole idea of what the holiday season is supposed to look like in favor of a more relaxed and peaceful time, with fewer expectations and obligations. I can understand that as well.

But I'll be home in time for Christmas.

I am fortunate because I actually enjoy all the holiday cliches. I love baking cookies every year with my sister and wrapping packages and setting the table for more people than it can comfortably hold. I love the falling snow and the ringing of sleigh bells and -- most of all -- the Christmas trees.

My first official act of the Christmas season will be to hurry down to the local hardware store to get my Christmas tree from the lot out front. I will walk there with my cart, and I will worry all the way to the store that I am too late. I will imagine the tree lot empty except for a few broken branches lying in the trampled snow.

"Sorry! Just sold our last tree 30 minutes ago," the man in the insulated overalls will tell me, and I will stand there in the snow with my little cart and my bungee cords and wonder where I will find a Christmas tree at this late date.

But this will not happen.

Instead, I will pick out a tree, all wrapped up in twine, and I won't even untie it. I will judge by its appearance -- all tied up -- that it will be the perfect tree.

The man in the lot will help me strap it into my cart, and I'll wheel it home. A few people will stare at the woman hauling her tree in a cart, but I won't mind. And when I get home, I'll put my tree in the stand and cut the twine cords binding it, and ever so slowly, the cold tree will unfurl. In the morning, I'll get out of bed, and it will be as if a miracle has taken place in my living room.

The perfect Christmas tree will be there, waiting for me, and I'll be home -- just in time for Christmas.

Till next time,

Carrie

Photos and other things can be found on Facebook at CarrieClassonAuthor.

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"He's on vigil," my husband, Peter, said, watching our cat, Felix.

Peter, who never had a cat before Felix, has become the resident cat expert. Of course, he has a sample size of one, so all his generalizations about cats are based on Felix.

I had quite a few cats before Felix, so I feel in a better position to say what kind of cat Felix is. Felix is a lively cat -- he is the most playful adult cat I've ever had. He is not a lap cat and does not like to be carried around. And he is a fussy eater. The first two make sense, since he spent his early life on the streets. The fussy eating is just Felix. He seems to think that, since he was scooped up off the streets into the lap of luxury (not the literal lap, you understand, because laps are much too confining), he deserves nothing but the best.

Felix is not crazy about his dry food -- which is a very good brand and is nutritionally complete. He will not eat leftover fish skin or cheese. He'll eat the occasional garbanzo bean, but it must be warm. I don't know how a cat with such particular tastes survived on the streets. But the one thing Felix likes is tuna, and he gets tuna every day. He gets tuna at promptly 8:30 p.m. because that has been declared by Peter as Tuna Time.

So Felix is on vigil every night from around a quarter to 8 until exactly 8:30. The anticipation before Tuna Time is the high point of his day. (I meant the high point of Felix's day, but it may well be the high point of Peter's day as well.)

Shortly before 8, Felix finds a spot where he can watch Peter -- a place where Peter could not possibly escape without passing him. He stares at Peter. As the hour approaches, Felix slowly inches closer to Peter. He watches more and more intently. Every time Peter glances up, there are a pair of golden green eyes fixated on him. Peter is master of Tuna Time, and every move he makes is observed by Felix.

I'm not sure how our lives became so ruled by this ritual that did not exist before we adopted Felix. Ignoring Tuna Time would be like skipping a sunrise or forgetting my birthday or putting on my shoes before my socks. It's a thing that can't even be imagined. When we go out to eat, Peter looks at his watch, "45 minutes until Tuna Time!" he says, and we know we better be heading home.

At about 8:27, Peter takes a deep breath. Felix hears the sharp intake of breath and freezes.

"And ..." Peter's voice rises to a crescendo, "... it's TUNA TIME!"

Felix races to the kitchen so fast his paws spin in place for a moment before he gains traction. He purrs so loudly I can hear him from the next room, as Peter assures him this is the most tuna he has ever received. (It is exactly the same amount every night.)

Felix eats the tuna in an instant. And then he relaxes for the evening. The main event is over. When he was younger, he would wail in apparent grief that the best moment of the day was over so soon. But he has come to understand that, like every good thing, Tuna Time must come to an end. And when it does, all there is to do is wait for another day when Tuna Time will come again.

Till next time,

Carrie

Photos and other things can be found on Facebook at CarrieClassonAuthor.

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It is an unusual living situation, in many ways.

My husband, Peter, and I spend almost half the year down in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. We had a terrible experience in another town (an absentee American owner with a filthy rental) and we came running back to San Miguel, desperate to find a place to stay -- any place that was clean and halfway affordable. And that is how Jorge found us.

"I have an apartment on Loreto that is available for the month," he wrote, in response to my frantic post on the San Miguel Facebook page.

"That will be expensive," I warned Peter.

Jorge told us the price. It was not expensive.

"That will be a dump!" I warned Peter.

It was not. It is a small apartment in a small hotel called "House of the Suns," and has (according to Jorge) nearly 3,000 suns painted on various surfaces and hung from all the walls. Most of these were painted by Fabrizio, the artist Jorge keeps on more-or-less permanent retainer.

Our apartment is not fancy, and it is not large, but we are happy. All our friends either own their own homes here or rent something much larger and fancier. I sometimes admire their space (and their bathtubs!) but I cannot imagine leaving Jorge.

Every time we are down here, I buy another painting at an art gallery and hang it on the wall. Peter buys another cooking gadget. We buy more pillows, and the cupboards fill with our brightly colored dishes from the market and ... we leave all of it, right where it is. Our apartment is rented out to other people while we are away, but Jorge does not mind.

Even so, I was reluctant to broach the subject of the table.

There is nothing wrong with our kitchen table. It's heavy and round and built for the outdoors, so it did not start its life expecting to be a kitchen table. That is not a serious problem. But it occupies a large percentage of our small kitchen and has awkward legs. And so (because I have a far-too-busy brain), I had been agitating about this table.

"I think we need a new table," I told Peter.

"You better ask Jorge."

Peter's No. 1 concern is keeping Jorge happy, and I share this concern. But I also wanted a new table. So I waited for the appropriate time, and I sprung.

"I have a very serious question for you," I told Jorge -- letting him know this might not be as serious as my words implied.

Jorge smiled. "Yes?" Jorge is always patient with my Spanish.

"I saw a table. It is square and painted, and I think it would be nice in the apartment. I wonder if I could buy it." I did not think Jorge would need much convincing, but I wanted to seal the deal. "And perhaps I could pay Fabrizio to paint a sun on the table."

Jorge smiled. Adding one more sun to our kitchen table certainly could not hurt.

"No problem," Jorge said.

"For sure?" I asked.

"For sure," he said.

So I went out the next day, and I bought the used blue and green painted table, and I carried it home. And the very next day, Fabrizio painted a magnificent sun on the top.

I don't know if this is how hotels are supposed to operate -- letting us put our art on the walls and swap out the furniture -- but it seems to work for all concerned.

And now, I am looking at the chairs ...

Till next time,

Carrie

Photos and other things can be found on Facebook at CarrieClassonAuthor.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION