HAPPY 2010!

OK- so it's a brand new year and the Christmas tree is still up at my house. I know- but I'll take it down this weekend... it's shedding needles but still so Wow! My favorite thing is the way lights and ornaments blur and reflect on shiny surfaces. I love the play of color on  random objects and so, I will drain the last drops of the festive assertion, the over-the-topness provided by this faux-transplanted tree, my pretend candy forest miracle-of-nature.

Don't you wish trees really looked like this? Lights twinkle and wink  unexpectedly ... everywhere you turn, really.
                                                                 I'll miss Christmas and do already.
As with every year that just-passed season feels like the dress rehearsal--

NOW I'm ready to have Christmas. This year was even more busy and fragmented and blurry-fast than usual, wasn't it?. I had my head down, focused on tasks and now it's over! Can I resolve to keep my elvish activities going this year so that next year I am ready? Only, many million-degree days will intervene between now and the next fast Fall, the waiting Winter. Hard to cheerfully fabricate north European folk traditions in 100% humidity...
Right now my resolve is strong because this FREEZING! weather is conducive to thoughts of sparkling ice and delicate traceries of frost and Alpine landscapes and hot chocolate imbibed while wearing  brightly defiant woolies! Here's to 2010! May Christmas live all the year.