16 December 1944 Dear Diary, Christmas is coming up again and it is going to be as bad as the last Christmas, I just know it. Well, last Christmas was not bad exactly, I mean we did all the same things we normally do; go to church, then come back home and look under the tree, finish up the cooking and set the table for the traditional dinner that my mum cooks for friends that come over to celebrate. The only difference is now we have been at war for just about five years, and since it started the 18 year olds have been going off to war. Only last year my own brother, Johnny, had gone off to fight in Europe. Nothing had seemed cheery after that. No one ever thought that the war would go on for this long and I hope that it will not go on any longer.Apart from my brother being at war, the rest of my family is also affected. Before the war, we lived in England and my mother did not work but now she is a ‘censorette' or at least that is what she calls herself. I don't know exactly what she does, but I know that part of her job is going through people's mail and looking for microchips and bits of information that might be helpful. She doesn't talk about her work when she comes home, she is just tired. My father is an officer in HMS Royal Navy. He was the attaché to Vice Admiral Sir Alban Curteis, with whom we came to Bermuda on HMS Malabar. When Sir Curteis left earlier this year my father was asked to stay on and be the attaché to Vice Admiral Sir Irvine Glennie. Vice Admiral Sir Irvine Glennie tells great stories of his travels. His latest stories being from the Mediterranean Sea. Sir Glennie's stories all sound better to me because of his Celtic brogue. I really enjoy when he takes time to say hello to me. As for me, all I do though is go to school or do chores.I bike ride everywhere, which sadly is not good news for my shoes. Today riding to school I practically ripped off the sole of my shoe. My mum was not impressed with my braking ability. She says that she will take them to the cobbler but it will take out some of the butter money to do so. After that my mum turned on the radio. Five years ago I would never have listened to the radio but now as the years go by I seem more intrigued in the speeches Winston Churchill makes and the news of the war, has it ended yet or will it come to an end soon?We started making food for Christmas. This year we are going to have roast chicken, cassava pie, roast potatoes, carrots and fruitcake for dessert (since my mother had been saving flour, butter and sugar). We are having a bit of a party like we always used to do when we lived back in England. We used to have a party at my grandmother's house with mostly the whole family, but since we came to Bermuda we have done it with a couple of my parents' friends. I don't mind so much because most of my parents friends have great stories to tell and children my age.I love hearing the stories and believe me I am grateful, but I wish for the good old days when at Christmas we used to have turkey and little sausages and plum pudding with hard sauce, all alight! Not fruitcake, I never liked fruitcake! I miss having a Christmas tree. We used to have one every year before the war and we used to decorate it together with ornaments some of which family members had made, some not. Bits of tinsel and strung popcorn all made for a fun evening. We used to have lights decorating our tree and the music playing or Nan at the piano just playing Christmas songs. Always so festive, always fun with all the family. Johnny and I used to beg our parents for a tree that year for Christmas (this was when the war had started). Now, not only do we not have a tree, we don't have enough electricity to use during the night so we use candles, which makes me feel like I am in the 1800's, carrying around my own lamp and having to light it to get up in the middle of the night.Although we did not have a tree to decorate our home or the lights to put around the tree, Mum seems to make our little pink cottage seem so ‘Christmassy.' We went out to the backyard to get some of the Mexican Pepper that are growing like wild and we cut down a few branches and hung it over the fireplace. Even though it is not quite holly, the bright red and green colours has the feel that it is Christmas compared to other homes and it looks really nice too.Yesterday, I traded some of the carrots my mum and I grew. I traded them with Mrs. Jones the lady a couple of roads down. She makes the best orange marmalade and always seems to be cheery even though war time. (She is joining us for Christmas dinner too.) The marmalade I got for my Dad who loves lots of marmalade on his toast. For mum I've made a scarf in my knitting classes. It is purple one since that is her favourite colour.This is turning out to be such a lengthy entry but since I have not written in a couple of days I have got to write all of this down and catch you up. It is nice to have someone to tell all of my thoughts to.I like coming into my bedroom after dinner and writing in my diary for as long as I need even if not all my homework is done. I am hoping to get a new diary for Christmas. Mum started calling me so I will be right back! I have to go and take out the garbage and check the mailbox then pull down the blackout curtain in my room.I will be right back dearest diary.I am back but I have to tell you what just happened.I was walking down to the mailbox even though it is such a useless thing to do, checking the mailbox everyday. I mean we have not gotten a letter for two weeks and that last one from Nan, it was not an interesting letter. The last interesting letter we got was from Johnny, but that was just three weeks ago so there would not be another one anytime soon. But this time when I walked up to the mailbox sure enough there was a white envelope sitting there! I grabbed it and ran back for the house to see if it was from Johnny.Sure enough it was from Johnny and like all letters he sends us we sit in the living room and Dad reads it out to us. It started out as it normally did saying: ‘Dear Dad, Mum and Mary,' then he goes on to say ‘I am doing well' but the biggest thing that he wrote was that the fleet was on the move and he might be able to visit us soon. Like always I get to look at the letter after Dad reads and then Mum looks at it and then it goes into the neat little pile of letters from Johnny. I was so happy but even through that excitement I thought about the people going through all the letters and blacking out bits of what soldiers say if it is too much information. I understand why they do black it out since the first letter we got from Johnny was mostly blacked out. I asked Mum why it was that way and she told me that it was to keep the information secret but still I don't like knowing that someone else has read through our private letter. Nevertheless, I am very happy to get his letter. Can't wait for Christmas.I don't think I will get any sleep,Mary