Winter Medley

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...


It's frigid cold these past few days.  The kind of cold where your face stings and your ears ring, and your fingertips go numb...with gloves.  I'm enjoying the real winter cold even though it's brutal when walking just a few blocks.  I've been drinking lots of hot chocolate, coffee, and tea.  I love bundling up in my new coat, cute hat, snug gloves and my scarf-of-the day.  I cherish the last moment in a cozy warm room before hitting the bracing, but exhilarating, air, or the first moment there that welcomes me back from it.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

It feels more like Christmastime than those balmy 50 degree days that Washington sometimes has in December.  At around 4'oclock on a gray, blustery day, it can look quite stark and dreary - those naked, gnarly tree branches in our concrete jungle.  But by 6pm, the holiday lights start to glow from the yards and from the Christmas trees framed in the undressed windows of inviting homes.  I love window-peeping in the urban winter landscape.

Let it snow.  Let it snow.  Let it snow.

It would all be softened by a little snow.  A white soft blanket that would cover the greys and muffle the harsh echoes.  And my guys at Capital Weather Gang are predicting the season's first snowfall will arrive tomorrow. One to two inches - a lit more than a dusting, and likely not lasting.  But that first snowfall is such a thrill.  Every. Single. Time.

Brown paper packages tied up with strings...

And I've got some holiday cheer, too.  I've been wrapping presents - one of my least favorite things to do, and usually put off until the very last minute.  But this year, I've engaged dear daughter and we're choosing paper and ribbon colors for each gift.  She writes the labels in her darling, newly-learned, uneven handwriting "To: Helena.  From: Grace and Victoria " and my heart melts to watch her grow up right before my eyes.  So present wrapping is not so awful this year, and we're doing a few per night.

Hallelujah!


Hallelujah, indeed!  Tomorrow, we're going to the Kennedy Center for the Messiah concert of the National Symphony Orchestra.  Every part of that last sentence is a superlative!  Such a wonderful treat.

And today, I will say, for the first time in a few days or a few weeks, It's a Wonderful Life.

Fa la la, la la, la, la, la, la.