Christmas Spirit?

Without too much ado, my wishes of a peaceful and hopeful Christmas go out to everyone. The deliberate effort here is to avoid the Santa- and shopping-centered Christmas and focus on something more beautiful and, hopefully, more important. Something that the song below begins to express, but can only exist if it is carried on in our hearts, words and actions.

Morning Has Broken is originally an Irish hymn, made famous by Cat Stevens (whose voice can be heard in the video above). Here are the lyrics, attributed to Eleanor Farjeon.

Morning has broken, like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for the springing fresh from the word

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God's recreation of the new day.

Three Interesting Things I Found in Croatia

Surely, nobody wants to hear about how we had fun in the sun while they were staying at home working. So, I'll just share there small details that I found interesting.

One
The solution to my self-imposed linguistic holiday assignment came to me in the form of a commercial leaflet, promoting ties. Neckties. It said "Welcome to the Homeland of the Cravat!". At first I thought it was a weakness of translation. I knew that in many languages that is the word for tie, but who uses the word cravat in English to refer to ties nowadays? Then I read the rest of the text.
It turns out that the tie actually does originate from Croatia, from late 16th - early 17th century. Hence its name spread in so many languages. They are so proud of this, that in 2008 they even introduced the annual celebration of the Cravat Day on 18 October.
When I realized the story of the word cravat, I was surprised and ashamed that I had not known this before.

Two
Hardly any information is written in any other language but Croatian. I'm talking about names of buildings, titles of exhibits, bus schedules, highway itineraries, directions and so on. This includes places like the Zadar citadel and port, lovely places to visit, names of museums, exhibitions in the citadel and menus in most of the bars and restaurants in an area where about 70% of people are tourists and I'm sure at least half don't know more Croatian than I do (and that's not much more than saying hello and thank you). In most places, they did speak English, however, but it was often easier to get along in German. The great majority of the announcements and writings, though, were only in Croatian.
I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but I do know that I would probably have visited more places if the writing outside had told me what it was in English. Or any other language I understand.

Three 
The Plitvička jezera  (Plitvice Lakes) National Park. I'll just let the pictures speak about this. Credit for the photos goes to my dear husband.