Isn't she lovely?

(Please imagine Stevie Wonder singing that line.)


We've got a tree up this year, for the first time in... four years? This is our fifth Christmas in NYC. We had a tree the first year, which I carried home because John was still using his cane. Sap everywhere! We stayed in the city that year, and I made crawfish etouffee for Christmas lunch. The next three years we traveled for Christmas, and this year we're hitting the road again.

So this little tree is not long for this world, since we will take it down before we leave for Austin. I've been enjoying its glow day and night, especially day, since they've been super-gloomy lately. Except today, which was brilliantly sunny and bitterly, bitterly cold.