Transmitting from the Mojave Wilderness in Joshua Tree, California,

now is the time for Desert Oracle Radio, the voice of the desert.

Night has fallen on the desert, as it likes to do this time of year around 4 p.m. or so, as we stumble toward years and winter solstice just four weeks away now.

Which can be a gloomy thought when we realize how much of the year got away from us again.

But sometime next week I'll buy. again. But

sometime next week

I'll buck up and drive down

to the Christmas tree lot

wherever I can find one.

Preferably not

in the home improvement chain's

parking lot.

We'll see what's out there this time around.

And if the magic still works sometime around the second week of December, I will start to feel it again.

The disappointments and distractions of the year gone by just might turn into something sweeter, but not too sweet.

A little more than bittersweet.

It's a fine line.

When the fireplace is roaring and the little lights are twinkling on the noble fur,

that strange mood of Christmas time usually comes again.

It's not nostalgia, not for me anyway. I don't know what it is, but something older than that. Rolling with the great wheel of the year, I suppose, when the horrified realization I'm still here slowly turns into well I'm still here

maybe we'll get

some snow for the holidays

...