What a Nice Christmas!

Let fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy.



Christmas was lovely. We had our fancy, junky dinner on Christmas Eve with grandparents here and lots of presents. The notable present of the day was Daisy's "Orsie" big enough to ride on. She immediately named him Joe, then stuck a toothpick up into his nostril as a ritual piercing.

Christmas morning was wonderful and peaceful. We had told the children not to get us up before 6:30, and at 6:30 on the dot they knocked on the door. It was just getting pink outside, and Giles had lit a roaring fire. So nice! They all liked their presents and were polite, so the Composer and I were happy. We ate Clara's fantastic Double Cranberry Coffeecake and drank cocoa--Daisy was barely stopped from pouring cocoa into the tiny open mouth of her new baby doll.

After church and Christmas dinner, Daisy and the Composer hit their naps, the Composer having spent several late nights making Christmas happen up in the studio. Then came my favorite part of Christmas, the afternoon hike. We've been doing one for the last five or six years. This year it was very cold (Daisy is not a fan of the cold outdoors and her nose immediately turns bright red. She also does a most convincing shiver.) But the light was beautiful, the colors of the woods were rich and subtle, and Felix walked right up to a heron on a pond which flew just inches from the ground in an arc both awkward and graceful, which was a perfect end to a holy day.