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83.

Five months later. Christmas 2020.

We took Archie to find a Christmas tree. A pop-up lot in Santa Barbara.

We bought one of the biggest spruces they had.

We brought it home, set it up in the living room. Magnificent. We stood back, admiring,

counting our blessings¹. New home. Healthy boy. Plus, we’d signed several corporate² partnerships³,

which would give us the chance to resume our work, to spotlight⁴ the causes we cared about, to tell

the stories we felt were vital. And to pay for our security.

It was Christmas Eve. We FaceTimed with several friends, including a few in Britain. We

watched Archie running around the tree.

And we opened presents. Keeping to the Windsor family tradition.

One present was a little Christmas ornament⁵ of…the Queen!

I roared. What the—?

Meg had spotted⁶ it in a local store and thought I might like it.

I held it to the light. It was Granny’s face to a T. I hung it on an eye-level branch. It made me

happy to see her there. It made Meg and me smile. But then Archie, playing around the tree,

jostled the stand, shook the tree, and Granny fell.

I heard a smash and turned.

Pieces lay all over the floor.

Archie ran and grabbed a spray bottle. For some reason he thought spraying water on the

broken pieces would fix it.

Meg said: No, Archie, no—do not spray Gan-Gan! I grabbed a dustpan and swept up the

pieces, all the while thinking: This is weird⁷.

1 blessings   

n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福

参考例句：

• Afflictions are sometimes blessings in disguise. 塞翁失马，焉知非福。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We don't rely on blessings from Heaven. 我们不靠老天保佑。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

2 corporate   

adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的

参考例句：

• This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
• His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。

3 partnerships   

n.伙伴关系( partnership的名词复数 )；合伙人身份；合作关系

参考例句：

• Partnerships suffer another major disadvantage: decision-making is shared. 合伙企业的另一主要缺点是决定要由大家来作。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• It involved selling off limited partnerships. 它涉及到售出有限的合伙权。 来自辞典例句

4 spotlight   

n.公众注意的中心，聚光灯，探照灯，视听，注意，醒目

参考例句：

• This week the spotlight is on the world of fashion.本周引人瞩目的是时装界。
• The spotlight followed her round the stage.聚光灯的光圈随着她在舞台上转。

5 ornament   

v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物

参考例句：

• The flowers were put on the table for ornament.花放在桌子上做装饰用。
• She wears a crystal ornament on her chest.她的前胸戴了一个水晶饰品。

6 spotted   

adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的

参考例句：

• The milkman selected the spotted cows,from among a herd of two hundred.牛奶商从一群200头牛中选出有斑点的牛。
• Sam's shop stocks short spotted socks.山姆的商店屯积了有斑点的短袜。

7 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。