Second Day of Christmas

Well, now that the materialists think Christmas is over, we can get on with it. The merchants try to keep their claws in with liberal return policies and gift cards, but that starts to fade away. The hedonists have had their revelries and now are setting their sights on New Year's parties. The politicians have kicked semantics around to create dissension and gain power thru divide and control techniques.

Still, through it all, Christmas continues until Epiphany, the 6th of January, so there is still plenty of time for those who prefer to think of the season as the Holy Days. To take the time to quietly contemplate larger issues of living, the still cold nights with stars seeming to be so much brighter than busier times of the year. In a more natural society, the harvests are finished and stored away, and the focus shifts from the business of external endeavors to the inner life, from the body to the soul.

We had a nice Christmas Day shared with friends of long acquaintance and their now mostly grown children. It had snowed a bit at the beginning of December, and then had remained 10-15 degrees F below normal, right up until Christmas Eve when it leaped to 12 degrees above normal, into the 50s F and by the evening all the snow had melted. It rained Christmas Day, then this morning, we awoke to dropped temperatures and a beautiful snow covered scene, every leafless branch carefully covered with snow. It was wonderful.

So we have had to date snow every day in December except Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. That is funny, really, as if the weather was having a joke on us and the dream of a white Christmas.