I’m writing this morning from a farm house in the southern third of Hunterdon County, N.J., a few miles from the Pennsylvania border. I’m staying here whilst visiting my sister who lives one town over.
Our annual visits have been part of the family history, especially since she contracted a rare bone cancer right at the outset of the COVID-19 crisis. She’s been doing pretty well, all thongs considered, given the fact that this kind of cancer usually carries a death sentence. She had to retire from being an active physician, despite having been absolute rockstar when it comes to her acting as a first responder in the community.
The last several Christmases have been fraught with outside influences and mini-dramas. But yesterday morning, I woke up to snow falling outside the window. It was a beautiful viewscape, one which came out of a Currier & Ives illustration.
Lots of people romanticize the “white Christmas,” even though those of a certain age know that eventually, you’re going to have to drive through that layer, whether in a car or in a one-horse open sleigh.
Still, it’s nice to think about, nature going about its business of releasing precipitation out of moist air.
And the placid winterscape that is left behind.
Happy Christmas, everybody.