Not Dreaming Of A White Christmas

Our Cathedral

Christmas In The Woods

7:37

It's 13º at the moment, the yard, bushes, and trees, blanketed with white.  It's 8:15 and I have been up for a couple of hours, waiting for the light.  Just beyond the ice, a least a hundred ducks, buffleheads, gulls, mallards, and mergansers, are floating by, looking for something to eat.  

Christmas Morning On Long Point

Yesterday did not seem much like Christmas because it was just the two of us.  It was strange to get up on a Christmas morning and have the house to ourselves, no children or grandchildren.  I did get in a paddle, however, knowing the lake would be frozen this morning.  And after the blog, we had a breakfast of bacon and waffles to look forward to.  Our depression, however, was lifted by a hike through the glorious cathedral of white, the woods of Long Point State Park.  Neither of us had ever seen it so beautiful and we hardly knew when to stop and take another photograph because each view was spectacular. Although we did not run across anyone walking like us, some of the trails showed some use so others had the same idea for a Christmas morning.  We did see a couple of fat tire bikers, making their way through the eight or nine inches of snow.  By the time we were back at the car, our spirits were up and we were ready for the rest of the day.  

We were out for over an hour and did not get home until 1:30.  I was really whooped from the walk and getting up so early, 5:30, so I easily fell asleep reading.  After my nap, we watched some basketball until it was time to shuck some oysters.  We sat around the kitchen, enjoying the oysters as I shucked them, dipping them in a horseradish and ketchup sauce, with a sprinkle of lemon.  Shucking was more difficult than it looks at a bar but I got the hang of it after a while, with help from Jill and Drew via a facetime call.  

Shucking It

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Face Time With Tom's Family

We had a zoom call with our son Tom and his family in Kansas City and Evie's sisters' in Chicago, Fort Worth, and Gilbert, AZ.  so we had a busy late afternoon.  Before the calls, Evie had prepped our dinner, Greek Lemon chicken, so it was baking in the oven as we talked.  We had the lemon chicken around 7:00, with rice, garlic spinach, and a salad.  This  Greek chicken used to be our family's favorite Christmas Eve dinner. We ended the day, as usual, watching a couple of shows on TV, Midnight Diner and Deadwood before going up to bed early.  

Snow Bound Bird Feeder