Hint

Yesterday, as we were chatting with friends from South Africa in our hotel room and our two daughters played in the bathroom (and the hall, and the strips of space between beds...), we suddenly heard the faint click of the mirrored closet door. And Cleo, suddenly was gone.

"Why," asked her playmate, "are you in the closet?" And Cleo, in turn: "I'm hiding while I change into my clothes because that's what ballet dancers do."

That's what they do: sure enough, dancers often work as hard offstage as they do on, and the magic of any performance of The Nutcracker (which Cleo recently saw, twice) depends as much on the costumes and the changing room as on the arabesques and swelling music in the performance hall. That which is shown is the result of that which is concealed.

Thus the Christmas hint, above, for one of this blog's most faithful readers. Let her who has eyes see. And to the rest of you, a happy Christmas, full of lovely manifestations of that which has been concealed, to all!