COVID Christmas 2020.  For too many this will be a profoundly and starkly different holiday. The gatherings, the meals, the presents… they will haunt us with their absence. The Ghost of Christmas Past will be this year’s star as we recall happier days.

But for those who are at wit’s end as they face a quieter Yule time, may I suggest an activity that will likely bring happiness to you and joy to those of Christmases Yet to Come: sort AND label your pictures.  Yes, those pictures in your closet and on your computer, the ones (probably most of them) that have no labels to explain who those people are (were).  Your children’s children will thank you.

I’m inspired to make this suggestion by a recent event in my own life that shows the value of taking some time to make these notations. I have only known my great grandfather, Milo Rockwood Whitaker, by pictures of him as an old man with a well-trimmed beard and a kindly face.  He died the year before I was born so I have no direct memories of him.

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