The Week Illustrated

Proud to say, I got the tree up and decorated on time, with ample time for adjustment and readjustment.

This year I tossed away the old artificial pine garland covered with artificial snow which I had used for the past 6, 7 years to line the mantel at Christmas. Then I had a problem: the mantel was bared and needed some covering. Buying another artificial anything seemed absurd since I just threw out the old one. So I came up with this idea, with material from right here this land of ours: 

What would you call the shade of blue that is the cedar berry? There's not another blue quite like it. I put the twigs in the mason jars. I make sure they have enough water to drink.

I have twelve of these to line the entire mantel, with the Nativity scene in the center. I don't have a photo of the center. What you see here is the right half of the shelf. The clock is a Christmas present from a friend in Texas. It arrived on Christmas Eve. 

Our cow Daisy gave birth to this little one, five days before Christmas, an early Christmas present:

I hand-painted some Christmas cards. The motif is an angel-like snow man, or a snow angel, as my friend Jan calls it. I sent these to just about five people. I didn't send cards to everybody this year. One reason is I couldn't find the cards I bought last year, which I liked; I looked in the stores this year, didn't see any I liked; I set out to hand-paint my own, and found out that it would take me the entire Christmas season to paint enough for everyone in my address book! 

I baked some mini loaves, put a bow on and gave them away to friends:

And I in turn received delicious treats from friends, not the least from my dear friend Jan. I should have taken picture when it was first opened but I didn't because I was a block head. The contents disappeared fast and furious. You're looking at the last one standing. I know both I and KDM are exercising our utmost social grace not to be the one to eat it.  

It snowed on Christmas Day: 

The next morning, our new calf looked like this: 

The clothes line looked like this: 

Pup the dog looked like this:

After excitedly taking a million snow pictures, I came in the house and drank some of this: