Christmas Eve Bluebirds, after a Rainbow!

Like Sweet Miracles:
In the middle of the high wind and driving rain yesterday, 
this Rainbow appeared for about 5 minutes.
Not only have we never seen a Winter rainbow here in 40 years of living here (and it was to the west, when usually they appear to our east), we were just visited by some Bluebirds! We haven't had Bluebirds here in YEARS, even in Summer!

 

Christmas Eve 🌟

 

Winter as Crucible

Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.

~ Katherine May: Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times 

(With thanks to the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids)

[Art: Anna Speshilova]

It's Winter! ☃️

 

Solstice! ☀️ Hey, puddle, the days are going to lengthen now!

 Solstice occurs at 4:47pm today!

 

Indoor Tree 🎄

            

❅ Happy Chanukah! 🕯 (Are you lighting a Menorah this week?)

O Christmas Tree

Mmmm...Cookies!

 These were made by Daughter, using jam preserved by Maine*DIL.

OOPS!

 

A friend of mine sent me this, that she found on Facebook. 

It's just the most amazing photograph, having caught that moment. I think this would make a far more interesting album photo than the typical cutting of the cake photo!  Somehow you just have to laugh. (And send out for ice cream, maybe?)

Blue Sky Pre-Storm

 

Dollhouse Christmas Tree 🎄

   

The Feast of St. Lucia

 

Splashdown!

                                                                                                  ~ via CNN

Christmas Village alight! 🎄

 

Ready to set up the Christmas Village...

 

Lights! 🎄

 

Don't let the cat out of the bag...! 😹

 

Layers of Cloud

 

Happy Feast of St. Nicholas!