2017-12-24 - Sunday - Festive shrubbery

On Christmas Eve I was outside grilling and noticed that the Harbor Belle dwarf nandinas were fruiting. It made me think even the shrubs were in the Christmas season (even though Karen and I are spending Christmas alone and I was grilling).

It was odd without the kids. Stephanie and Brett spent Thanksgiving with us, so they spent Christmas with Brett's family. Meredith couldn't get time off for Christmas until the 29th. We will all meet up in Pennsylvania after Christmas. That will be nice.

I love Karen, and we love spending time together, but it was a strange Christmas without the kids here. Binkley isn't here either, and he always LOVED Christmas.

We discussed going someplace for Christmas next year, possibly a cruise.

We'll see.

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2017-01-07 - Saturday - Snow, no show

While the meteorologists were calling for 4-7 inches of snow, we ended up with 1/4 inch of ice and 1/4 inch of snow. The best part was that the roads all melted by midday and everything was clear and dry.

I wonder what people are going to do with all that food they bought. I know the supermarkets' profits are off to a great start for 2017.

At least it was pretty.

No shoveling required.

I can't even break through the underlying ice.

Ice still clinging to the branches.

Snowy lichen.

Christmas Eve I stopped by Clayworks to drop off some supplies and found that someone had left me a small gift bag of Dove dark chocolate candies on my shelf. When we left for Pennsylvania on Monday I looped one of the handles over my gear shift to make it a handy snack during the drive. I still have one left.

Thank you whoever gave me the candy, it's been a great treat and I have savored each one.

Handy candy.

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2016-12-24 - Saturday - Christmas Eve

I stopped in at Clayworks to drop some stuff off and not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

Later in the afternoon I started a new Christmas Eve tradition of raking and bagging leaves.

While out there I noticed the sunset, and it was very pretty, somewhere over there.

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December 24 - Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve afternoon I went to the studio to trim my yunomi.  Clayworks was pretty empty, even for Christmas Eve and I got them finished pretty quickly.

After that I went home and moved some of the huge mulch pile in the front yard from our recent tree trimming, but there's still a lot to move.

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