Mighty Maple on New Year's Day
What a crisp, cold day January 1st was this year! But you just don't see skies much bluer that the photo above has. That night it got down to -3, the high on Wednesday was about 9, and the temperature when we got up Thursday was -13. Is it enough to say it was cold? Today it was into the 30's, and much more tolerable to be out and about. But let me go back up a bit to last year, and the wonderful Christmas Holiday...
It was fantastic to have two of my daughters, their husband and boyfriend and my beautiful, amazing grandson here for a week, and a bit more. My sister and her husband came up on Christmas Eve, and we had a great time Christmas morning opening all of our gifts, eating Pannetone for breakfast, then a huge ham for dinner. Everyone got really nice gifts, I got socks and oven mitts a cookbook, crock pot, pan, this new MacBook Air computer, and lots of other things. And I got to hold the little guy and help him open his presents. It was fun.
It was a good week. I did have to squeeze in some hours at the store, but was able to leave early most days, and had them visit me there on the day after Christmas. Everyone went to breakfast at our favorite restaurant on Sunday, and we went bowling one day then out for Chinese buffet. Otherwise, we ate and played and ate and bathed 9the baby) and just did lots of sitting around by the fire. And two days after Christmas we had a major snowstorm that dropped about 18 inches on our doorstop (which didn't stop me from having to go to work that day!) But the days passed quickly, and before we knew it, the first two were on their way (excluding my sister and brother-in-law who left Christmas night.) And then, after one more day's delay because of a few more inches of snow, the last three (4, if you count their big dog too) were on their way, and the house is once again rather quiet. All of the decorations are still up, but I will probably take them down on Sunday when I'm off, but that anticipation and preparation feeling is gone, and we have settled into the calm of the winter season here. It's a funny time of year this far north. The days are still very short, especially if its cloudy. It can be freezing cold, or mild, sunny, or dreary, and you get the feeling that one day is just like the next. But I rather like it. Everything seems to slow down to a near dead crawl, and there's a snuggled in, challenge kind of feeling as we watch what the weather has coming, and we prepare for whatever we can control. Before we know it, we'll be tapping the trees next month for sap, and the days will start warming up with the sweet smell of sugar season. But for now, here is a great picture from Christmas morning:
He looks like he's in a castle, but its actually our fireplace behind him!
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