Dec. 4: I will buy Christmas stamps - if any remain. I still have several boxes of new cards. Some years, mugs full of candies and nuts serve as gifts for drop-in friends. At another time, tokens might have been jars of homemade pear preserves, but not this year; not after the Easter freeze. Once, I went to a party without a gift. The hostess presented me with a bottle of her homemade blackberry wine.