WInter Dark and Winter Light

Crossroads at Old World Wisconsin

Crossroads at Old World Wisconsin

How did it get so late so soon.
It’s night before it’s afternoon.
December’s here before it’s June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?

Dr. Seuss

Ah, the shortest day of the year. Cloudy, cold, gray outside.

Lots of lights are on inside though, for today only I’m ignoring the electric meter. The lights on the tree are glowing – all those bright LEDs in their sapphire blues, and ruby reds and emerald greens. They truly look like jewels.

Outside looks rather like the above photograph. But the photograph I’m keeping safely tucked inside my mind looks rather like the following one:

Lights like Tiny Jewels

Lights like Tiny Jewels

Ah, that is so much better!

Marigold Teapot

From the Marigold Kitchen

From the Marigold Kitchen

Not the best of timing, only a few days before family from both coasts comes for a long holiday visit, but I’m feeling a bit under the weather. This photograph of a bright yellow teapot, and the thought of a cup of hot, aromatic tea, makes me feel better. Not spirited enough to wrap the final stack of gifts or bake the last batches of cookie dough chilling in the fridge. But certainly good enough to sink into the easy chair in the living room and gaze at the brightest of tiny lights on the tree. That’s one of my favorite parts of the holiday season, enjoying the twinkling lights in a winter dark house.

Tomorrow is soon enough to finish the wrapping and baking. Now is a perfect time to sit and contemplate writing several lines in my gratitude journal.

Winter Perspective

Old World Wisconsin

Old World Wisconsin

Spring passes and one remembers one’s innocence. Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence. Winter passes and one remembers one’s perseverance. ~ Yoko Ono

Blue Skies

Crispy Cold

Crispy Cold

There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you . . . in spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself.  ~Ruth Stout

Pine Forest

After the Snow Storm

After the Snow Storm


We all travel the milky way together, trees and men… trees are travellers, in the ordinary sense.  They make journeys, not very extensive ones, it is true:  but our own little comes and goes are only little more than tree-wavings – many of them not so much.  ~John Muir, Scribner’s Monthly, November 1878