This illustration makes me happy, so I thought I’d share it with you.
I think it’s beautiful on so many levels: the natural setting, the red barn, the deer, the stream, the tree with a few ruddy leaves clinging to its branches, and the cozy home with fireplace smoke spiraling up, and the windows lit so warmly from within.
But I think my favorite part of this is the way the light from the windows and the setting sun spills out onto the trail of footprints through the snow, gilding the whole area with a rosy glow.
It’s peaceful and lovely…and somewhere I wish I could be right about now! So I will visit there in my imagination. ❤
The tree and decorated mantel in my living room. My chair is the one closest to the shelves; my husband’s is nearest to the camera
Now that my grades are in for the five weeks (even though I just got in another eight inch stack to grade over the holidays) I have a little time to breathe and enjoy the sights and sounds of the season. I thought I’d share a few images from around my house, since I’m a home body and I love to decorate for whatever occasion I can. 🙂
A little glass of eggnog with nutmeg gets things going.
This “mistletoe crystal” was a gift from a friend last year. I think it looks really pretty hanging from the chandelier in our dining room.
For me, Christmas-time wouldn’t be complete without some old-fashioned, “clove” oranges. The tradition of using cloves stems back further than medieval times, but the use of clove-studded oranges for scent and sight became very popular in the Victorian era. I made these last weekend (it doesn’t take long) and used the old iridescent fruit bowl my parents bought for me at an old antique/second-hand shop a couple of decades ago, perched on the silver case my sister-in-law bought for my husband and me when we got married 24+ years ago.
A close-up of the some of the lights and decorations on the mantel. I think this looks a little like a Christmas card design, don’t you?
And a shot of our sweet English shepherd, Cassie, snoozing under the Christmas tree. So cozy!
I hope you’re getting some opportunities, whether you celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanza, or nothing at all, to enjoy the different pace of the season.
As the title says, this is a post with an embedded video (just published this month) that I find incredibly beautiful, inspirational, and moving, with gorgeous music and images…and an ending that makes me tear up a little every time.
But it’s blatantly Christmas-focused (the focus is a traditional carol and the connection of the season to the history that inspired it), so if that is not your thing, or Christmas-related material bothers you, then feel free to go on to read someone else’s posting of the day.
For everyone else, I hope you enjoy this as much as I do. 🙂
A photo of my mother-in-law and her late husband is perched right above the village she created
The village all lit up
Last year I inherited my mother-in-law’s rather extensive “Dickens’ Village”. She built it over several decades, and some pieces need repair (like the gorgeous church, which isn’t pictured here because the steeple is broken). But it’s a beautiful collection, and my girls, when they were little, always used to love to go to grandma’s to look at it all lit up during the holidays.
It’s a little bittersweet now, to have it in our home. Her home was sold about a year ago because she suffers from Alzheimer’s. She lived with us for a summer and spent time with each of my husband’s siblings, but as she got worse, we had no choice for her own safety and well being but to move her to a constant care facility about 30 minutes from us. As of now, her disease has progressed to the point that although she usually recognizes that she knows us, when we visit, she doesn’t always know why or how, or who we are.
The village is one of the tangible reminders of what once was in our little family and can never be again.
So we will keep the village safe and put it out with love each year, in memory of all the happy times we spent together. Someday, I will pass it down to my girls, and they can keep the memories – and the remembered love – of their Grandma McCall alive and well.
This is the same tree I posted last night, in the early daylight this morning. It’s all sort of artistically monochrome outside at the moment.
It kept snowing and snowing last night (we finally got the 8 or so inches the weather people had claimed we’d be getting beginning on Tuesday, when all we had was rain and a little icing).
I love trees in general, and I love seeing them in all their phases, including dressed in lovely robes of snow. The dark branches and trunks make such a pretty contrast with the white of the snow, before the wind blows it all bare again.
There’s a big Nor’easter sweeping up the coast. We’re forecast to get up to 14 inches of snow by tomorrow night.
As a winter baby (February birthday), I’ve always loved snow. I have no problem being up north all year long.
As a teacher and a mom, I especially love snow days. Like today.
I might actually get caught up with some of the extra work of the season (like trimming the tree that has been cut and put up in the living room for two days now without anything on it).
I might get to tackle the 8 loads of laundry or the 10 inch stack of papers.
My list is far longer than I can accomplish in one day (especially with everyone home and needing to eat…and I’m the chief cook and bottle washer), but it’s a gift nonetheless. Hope you’re all enjoying your day, wherever you are.
Do you have snow days (or a hot weather equivalent) in your neck of the woods?
From my tea today – Good Earth’s “Sweet and Spicy”, which is one of my favorites at this time of year, for its lovely cinnamon-sweet warmth.
I love my dog, and, in the words of my sister-in-law, who helped me organize my pantry cupboards a few years ago, I “have more tea than all of China” because I enjoy it so much, it’s true.
But I also love my husband and wouldn’t have thought to make this kind of comparison.
As I mentioned in my last post, it’s begun to snow in Upstate New York. It’s very pretty in many ways, if a little early and a little cold, and some of the scenes I encounter in my travels recall a few bittersweet memories for me.
But first, let me say that I know the snow isn’t technically early for this area (I’ve lived within 150 miles of my hometown for most of my life), but I prefer if it holds off until after December 1, when I can more suitably get into the holiday spirit (of course I wouldn’t mind if it drifted away by February and spring would arrive, but that doesn’t usually happen until April or May)
Anyway, as I was driving into work after this first, several-inch snow, it called to mind images from one of my favorite holiday books/movies, The Snowmanby Raymond Briggs.
This story – which I associate primarily with the film version, because of my at-the-time very young daughters’ insistence that we purchase it on VHS and play it several times each holiday season – makes me feel bittersweet (as I think it was intended to do for readers/viewers anyway).
For me, now, however, the bittersweet feelings the film and music (a lovely score with “Walking in the Air” by Peter Auty) engender in me are compounded by the fact that my daughters are no longer little girls. That time has passed and exists only in my memories now. Awareness of this creates a little catch in my throat sometimes…a sense of nostalgia and longing that burns for a second or can even make me tear up a bit.
That’s what happened as I saw these scenes of snow-covered farm land and fields. It made me long for the days when my daughters were little and reveled in the simple, innocent pleasures of snuggling up on the couch with me, holding warm cups of cocoa as we watched The Snowman together.
It is the way of the world, I suppose: The only constant in life is change.
Here’s the full video of the film version of The Snowman for those of you who haven’t seen it before (or just want to watch it again). It’s definitely Christmas-oriented, so if you’re like me, and try to hold off until December to indulge in such festive material, then feel free to bookmark and come back to watch later! Or just do a search on YouTube and you can find it there. 😉
Photo I took near a farmer’s field, of geese noisily heading South for the winter
Two quotes of the season by two authors whose work I have enjoyed:
“But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods…for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them.” ~L.M. Montgomery
“Wild geese fly south, creaking like anguished hinges…Season of woolen garments taken out of mothballs; of nocturnal mists and dew and slippery front steps…” ~Margaret Atwood
This illustration makes me happy, so I thought I’d share it with you.
M. Reed McCall, Author 