Countdown to Christmas

We're in the process of decorating the lovely Noble pine we bought over the busy weekend.  The plan is to add ornaments tonight, but plans have had a way of getting blown out of the water recently!  Do you think we have enough lights on this tree?  There are eleven strands!  I think we got carried away.

I have been remiss in recording our second snowfall of the season which, I think, was last Monday.  It was tiny, just an inch or two, so I was surprised to find snow still on the trails up in Chautauqua when we hiked up there a few days ago.  This is partly because more snow falls up there, even though it's just a half mile up the hill from us, but also because mountains block the sun starting about 3:00 each afternoon.   I took this photo at 3:15 and you can see how the eastern plains are stilled bathed in light while the park is already shadowed as the sun starts to hide behind the mountains.   By 4:00 it's dark here while there's still light just east of us.   

Paul has finals this week and then is in for two weeks of hanging out and chillin'.  The college age kids in his band are ending their semester so the band is back together for a couple of weeks.  They had a gig the other night which we popped in to see and they sounded great.  I loved this photo. 

 I'm doing a little shopping and holiday prep work today and have a couple of events this week that should be fun.  I'm already starting to look forward to the short, dark days of January that make slowing down so enticing.